The Auto Entrepreneur system here is very popular, several hundred thousand people have taken up the offer. The flat rate low tax rate payable on income is fine with me.
It just seems a little crazy to have an extra business tax not based on income or profit.

By the way – Tax Professionelle is on average around 300 euros per year.

I think there has been some pressure from the Artisans who feel that they are being undercut by AE businesses. But they should not fear us as they can reclaim 19.6% value added sales tax (TVA) and AE owners can not.

It’s curious because they need encourage people to become an entrepreneur these days, not otherwise.

Here in Brazil we have a system called MEI where people have to pay only 30 Reais (about 12,5 Euros) a month. You don’t have to pay any extra taxes.

It works. We have 1.5 million people participating.

The bad thing is there’s a small number of jobs able to join it. Programming business is not included, for example.

The first time in my own house, yes I was paranoid and checked it over and over, but the more you do the more cavalier you get. I did check the resistance with a multimeter before and after the tiles were laid, so I was very confident it was OK. Just the thermo let me down !

Underfloor heating with tiles is fantastic. In my house the heating comes on early in the morning (05:30? using Heurse Creuse cheap electric) and then for an hour or so in the afternoon to top it up. Last year we only had the underfloor on in the kitchen and a woodburner in the lounge. No other heating and it was nice and warm. Since then two friends have also installed UEH and love it. It’s just so nice to come down in the morning and have warm tiles under foot.

Once the 10cm concrete slab has been heated up (takes a few days) there is so much stored energy the house just keeps warm. The problem with electric wall heaters is they only heat the air, and as soon as you open a door or window all the heat rushes out.

The electric cost is not too bad – (Nov & Dec 2011 was around 250 for everything, cooking, water, heating, 3 computers !) I did do some back of the envelope calcs for the gite and if a guest wound the heating up to full 24 hours a day and left all the doors and windows open it would cost about 50 euros. Of course that doesn’t happen.

The thermostats I have in the gite, have an password protected engineer lock so I can set the max temp, which they cannot override.

We’ll have to see how it goes over this winter.

I’ve wondered about these kind of underfloor heating kits, especially for ceramic floor tiles which look so traditional in French properties.

How much of a difference do they really make to the room temperature and more importantly what’s the electricity cost like to run it? I’d be worried about the guests leaving them on all the time and me being left with a massive EDF surprise at the end of the year!

Cheers

Note;
Works OK with new WP V3.04 Network install

Many Tthanks

Cheers, Geoffrey

Thanks again.

I have just read all your help and imformaion about your journey to a better life, and it has given me so much help and understanding and knowledge.Me and my husband are looking at achieving this for ourselves, in a couple of years time, but have no clue to how to start planning for this change in our lives. When I read the account of your journey, I found it so helpful and If it is ok with you, maybe keep in touch for further advice and help.