Are we better off not using our own house for work purposes?
We would like to understand what would be in our best interest as part of the process of establishing ourselves - me and my partner - as auto-entrepeneurs (respectively). We are now filling in the Declaration Modele H1 (impots locaux) for our primary residence, which my partner owns. We are researchers (social sciences, philosophy) as our primary activity and have thus registered as profession liberale.
We understand that we will be exempt from the taxe fonciere for the first three years, but we do not understand whether it is an advantage for us to declare part of our house as being used professionally. We are not looking to cheat, but we do not have any space used exclusively for business purposes and often sit in cafes doing our work. As such, we are flexible and could indeed refrain from using our own house at all, if that would be to our financial benefit. So what we are trying to understand is:
- Are we better off not using our own house for work purposes at all, and hence not declaring it as such? In other words, declaring it solely / exclusively as usage d’habitation.
- Will our total cost (taxe d’habitation + taxe fonciere) effectively be lower if we dedicate a part of our own house for work purposes and declare it accordingly?
Given that we do not have to pay taxe fonciere the first three years - in any case - we are looking for answers in two different ways with respect to our financial disadvantage /advantage:
- For the first three years
- After the first three years
In case we would be better off - one way or the other - can we easily change our setup after the first three years? So, what we should do if we were to decide simply in financial terms?