Consulting in France and filing US taxes?
My husband and I will be taking up residency in France when he retires next year. We are currently resident in the US, spend part of each year in France, and are dual US / UK citizens. We both worked in France for some years in the 1980s, so have our French social security numbers, and have had our social security history brought up to date. We haven’t worked or lived in the UK since 1979. I work via the internet as an independent contractor for an American company, editing an engineering journal, and will continue to do that from France. I bring in $45,000/year, which at current rates is about 31,000 euros. My husband will be retired from his current position as a university professor, but will continue to have some consulting income, between 15,000 to 30,000 Euros/year. We will also have income from my husband’s US social security, as well as investment income as necessary.
My questions are
- Do we both need to register as auto-entrepreneurs? Or would another business regime be better?
- As US citizens, I understand we will have to file a US tax return and pay US taxes, plus make a French tax return, and pay any surplus over what we pay on the US taxes. But then how do I avoid being double-taxed, given the flat social and tax auto-entrepreneur charges?