If you are looking for properties for sale South France, or indeed have taken the plunge and acquired one you will sooner or later have to deal with the French tax system. Here is a little overview to help you get to grips with France’s complex and often arcane revenue gathering institutions.

In France tax is levied by the government, and collected by the public administrations. French "public administrations" are made up of three different institutions:

The central government, i.e. the national government or the state ("l'État") strictly speaking, plus various central government bodies. It has a separate budget (general budget, special Treasury accounts, special budgets). It collects most of the tax in France.

Local governments, which include agencies with limited territorial jurisdiction, such as local authorities, local public establishments, chambers of commerce and all public or quasi-public bodies financed primarily by local governments. They collect many taxes, but their weight is rather limited compared to that of central government.

Social security association (ASSO) are private organizations endowed with a mission of public service (even though they behave to a large extent like public administrations). Their budget is made up of all mandatory social security funds (general scheme, unemployment insurance schemes, complementary retirement funds and welfare benefit funds, funds for the liberal professions and agricultural funds, special employee schemes) and the agencies financed by such funds (social works, public and private sector hospitals contributing to public hospital services and financed from an aggregate operating grant). They are mostly financed by social contributions, collected for the sole purpose of social welfare.

Tax in France is made up of taxes in the narrow meaning of the word, plus social security contributions. Most of the taxes are collected by the government and the local collectives, while the social deductions are collected by the Social Security. There a distinction to be made between taxes (impôts), which applies to production, importations, wealth and incomes, and social contributions (cotisations sociales), which are part of the total wage paid by an employer when he remunerates an employee. Taxes and contributions together are called in French prélèvements obligatoires (compulsory deductions).

Is subject to France tax people having their tax domicile in France, i.e. natural or legal persons either living in France, i.e. who have their homes or their principal residence in France; working in France; having the centre of their economic interests in France. Only one of these criteria is sufficient for a person to be treated as taxable.

The housing tax applies to all building sufficiently furnished and their dependencies (gardens, garages, private car parks): the tax is payable by any person who has a residential unit at one's disposal, for any reason (owner, renter, occupant for free). The tax base is the cadastral rental value of the residential property.

The property tax on built lands is applied to properties built in France. The taxable properties consist of all permanent construction, i.e. buildings (blocks of flats, houses, workshops, warehouses, etc.). The tax base is the cadastral income, equal to 50% of the cadastral rental value of the building (i.e. the value set by the administration). For social reasons, there are many exemptions and exceptions.

Despite a downward trend registered since 1999, the tax burden in 2007 (43.3% of GDP) remains at a high level, both historically and in comparison with other countries. OECD countries have experienced an increase in the tax burden since the mid-60s comparable to that of France, rising from 25% of the GDP in 1965 to 36% in 2005. That of the countries of the European Union has increased by nearly 12 percentage points of GDP over the period. Efforts to control the increase in the tax burden have been made by the states of the OECD: the tax rate decelerated during the 90s and has decreased slightly since 2000. This is why France continues to be among the OECD countries whose tax rate is the highest. Taxes account for 45% of GDP against 37% on average in OECD countries. The overall rate of social security and tax on the average wage in 2005 was 71.3% of gross salary, the highest of the OECD. The levels of social security contributions are particularly high (16.3% of revenue against 9.4% in average for OECD). The social security budgets are larger than the budget of the national government. The budgets of both the national government and of social security organizations run deficits.

There are many taxes in France. They can be classified according to the institution which collects and benefit from them and to the people who pay them. Taxes are monetary benefits imposed on people according to their capacities and without return of benefit, for the purpose of public expenditure is to achieve economic and social goals set by the government. As for tariffs, they are different from taxes because of their strictly economic aspect; their purpose is to protect the domestic market. However, some charges levied by the customs administration are taxes: the value added tax levied on goods from non-members of the European Union, the tax on petroleum products, which applies regardless of the origin of products, and other taxes. Finally, although they are compulsory, social security contributions are not taxes as they are collected for one purpose - social protection - and as the taxpayers might benefit from these expenses.