Must neo-bank ‘pots’ of non-euro currencies be declared to French tax authorities?
Foreign accounts need to be declared on annual income tax declaration
Knowing the Iban of your account is important
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Reader Question: I read a Connexion article about declaring foreign bank accounts. We declare many of these. One of these is my account with Wise. However, while I have a main account, I also have a number of ‘pots’ within it, including Hungarian Fiorints, South African Rand, euros etc. Do I have to declare each pot separately?
Tax residents of France are, as you mention, required to declare in their annual tax declaration the existence of foreign accounts that were opened, closed, held or used by them during the year in question, using section 3916. Tax professionals generally advise erring on the side of caution when it comes to this and declaring any structures that can hold money in them.
Having said this, we checked with Wise, the online bank, whose European arm is based in Belgium, and they stated it would not be necessary to declare these different ‘pots’ separately as long as they are all associated with the same Iban (international bank account) number.
Read more: Do foreign savings accounts have to be declared on French tax forms?
Wise accounts advice
A spokeswoman said: “Customers with a registered address in France only need to declare the Iban (we refer to that as ‘account details’ in our product) associated with their Wise account. Wise provides account details in up to nine currencies. However, there’s no requirement to declare all individual balances held within the account, which can include more than 40 currencies.
“If your reader holds euros in their Wise account, they will specifically need to declare their Wise’s Belgian Iban.”
Read more: Foreign bank accounts: French court clarifies rules after US account case
