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I have been reading on https://www.cesu.urssaf.fr/info/accueil.html about the cheque d'emploi system.

As I read it, if I employ someone on a casual basis with a targeted net pay then the actual cost to me is less than if I paid then cash in hand.

If that is the case, why do so many people work on the black? Is it to keep their overall declared earnings down?

I know I would have to shell out more to start with but there looks to be a lot of advantage in doing it correctly.

Anybody using this system?

We have employed people with a cheque d'emploi. It's an easy system to use, but you have to pay minimum wage plus holiday allowance. You will also have to pay about 50% of that for contributions to security social. You're supplied with the "cheques" which you fill out and return. They work out how much you owe in contributions. This was 6 or 7 years ago, retired now.

Don’t know if this will tell you anymore than you already know but there are definitely more advantages than disadvantages.
https://anglophone-direct.com/the-chequ ... al-labour/
Basically, you become an employer and the employee is on a contract meaning he or she has most of the same rights as any employee.
I think some people are frightened of formalising it on both sides for various reasons.

Florence wrote:You're supplied with the "cheques" which you fill out and return.

It's somewhat simpler now. You can pay in cash or with your own cheques and you then declare the payments on the CESU site. Cesu charge you the social security through direct debit. Depending on the service, you get income tax relief on the payments automatically.

Russell

Thanks Russell. Will add that the original article.

Can you please clarify, their site talks about the financial advantage for the employer.

Is your tax reduced by the financial advantage, or is it just allowed against the amount on which you pay tax?

If it is the former then it looks like you get back more than you pay out.

How does the employee’s tax work. I believe that if you make a net payment to them then your payment includes an element of tax but do they get it back if they don’t earn enough or is that it?

Allan wrote:Can you please clarify, their site talks about the financial advantage for the employer.

Is your tax reduced by the financial advantage, or is it just allowed against the amount on which you pay tax?

If it is the former then it looks like you get back more than you pay out.

How does the employee’s tax work. I believe that if you make a net payment to them then your payment includes an element of tax but do they get it back if they don’t earn enough or is that it?

I imagine that the tax advantage is the credit d’impot you can get by paying your servants over the table rather than under the table. But I’m not sure I understood the question.

At the risk of stating the obvious, if you claim tax relief for paying money to employee X, the fisc will want the tax on it from them (plus CSG etcc which they should already have got). Whether it works out better than paying them on the black requires more research than I can be bothered with, especially since I used to do this stuff for money.

Allan wrote: Is your tax reduced by the financial advantage, or is it just allowed against the amount on which you pay tax?

It is allowed against the amount on which you pay tax, ie, credit d'impot. You don't have to claim it. CESU pass the information on and it seems to be automatic.

The employee will pay tax on their income if they earn enough. Not sure how "prelevement à source" will affect it though.

Russell

I'm obviously being thick but I still don't get it.

URSSAF has a website that allows you to calculate the cost of employing someone.
https://www.cesu.urssaf.fr/decla/index. ... er&LANG=FR

If I enter 15€ an hour Net for 10 hours a week then it tells me the cost of that would be 256.49€ without the tax advantage and 128.24€ with the tax advantage.

I read that as saying that I can pay someone legitimately at 15€ an hour at an actual cost of 12.82€ per hour.

This is so surprisingly generous that I wonder if I am misunderstanding it.

I don’t think so. The details are here
https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/part ... i-domicile

Your employee will be liable to tax depending on their other income if it gets recorded as part of their revenu fiscal de reference (as it would, obviously) and it will count against their entitlement to various “allocationsâ€￾ and exemptions (eg from taxe d’hab’) which tend to loom large in the budgets of people who do this sort of work. So I doubt that it’s a no-brainer for everyone to be paid legit, but it’s obviously meant to be tempting, if only to save anxiety.

I appreciate all the advice but I'm still not getting it.

Perhaps I am thinking too much in UK terms (or I'm just thick).

When they talk about a credit d'impot, do they mean that the tax that I pay is reduced by that amount or that the amount on which I pay tax is reduced by that amount?

Allan wrote:I appreciate all the advice but I'm still not getting it.

Perhaps I am thinking too much in UK terms (or I'm just thick).

When they talk about a credit d'impot, do they mean that the tax that I pay is reduced by that amount or that the amount on which I pay tax is reduced by that amount?

The former.

The Cheques to uses in the public looking so much impressment to the others are so being a user of the credit card that will be option of the professionals. Improve the payment status from improving writing skills for college students they are only use credit cards with unlimited withdrawn.

Giving fictious figures just as an example.
You pay someone 55 hours at 11€ making 605€
a month or so later you have to pay a little over 300€ in charges so you have paid out let us say 925€ for argument's sake.

Next year half of that is allowed against tax

In my case it has been enough to exempt me from income tax for the last few years.
I believe in the future you may even get some back if the allowance exceeds your tax liabilty. Up till now it could wipe it out but any excess was lost