Crikey, if you're living in France and renting gites, it really helps to know what these mean!Please will you use the whole words and not initial letters so that I can understand. CSG ? CFE?
CSG (Contribution Sociale Généralisée) is a contribution taken as a specific percentage of all forms of taxable income and gains. It's calculated on earned income, pension income, unearned income and property rental, investment income, bank interest and capital gains. It's NOT a contribution to healthcare.
Following a ECJ (European Court of Justice) ruling last year that France shouldn't be charging CSG to other EU nationals living in France if they were paying into another healthcare system (eg S1 holders) it was possible to claim exemption and a refund. But France moved quickly on the "property rental" part and closed this loophole, so you still pay it. Apparently some communes are still exempting it for 2015 income - ours isn't but as my French friends tell me, I'm not paying CSG for healthcare, I'm paying just yet another tax to help France fund itself.
CFE (Contribution Fonciere des Entreprises) is a local tax calculated on the rental value of a property (or part of a property) used for business activity. It replaced the local "taxe professionnelle" and the amount is decided at municipal level so it can vary from one commune to the next. Some gite owners pay Taxe d'Habitation on the gite rather than CFE, I think it depends on how the gite(s) is/are configured within or without their main property.
Morristhedog, why did you change from CPAM (Caisse Primaire d'Assurance Maladie) to RSI (Régime Social des Indépendants - I'm pretty sure it's RSI, not SRI). Have you become an AE (Auto Entrepreneur) and are you paying cotisations (for healthcare and other things) to RSI? If so, are you sure you needed to? If the income from the gite is less than 50% of your total income, you could just declare on your annual tax form and stay with CPAM as an S1 Holder without becoming an AE. But you'll still be liable for CSG and CFE/Taxe d'Habitation.
And incidentally, if you have registered as an AE, you've quoted a figure of 23.10% which is the AE cotisations percentage for services but as an AE, the percentage for gites (classed as sales) is 13.40%.
Erica T - apologies for the thread creep - I have pm'd you.