Sacem/Spre

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Bassman
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Post by Bassman »

Any news regarding the appeal by GdF if gites should be paying this or not? I have just received a bill and really not sure what to do?
petitbois
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Post by petitbois »

I spoke with my GdF contact (ex president for our region) & yes gites are now liable. A friend of mine with a gite complex phoned SACEM & yes we are all now liable, but good news it will not be backdated.....they seem to have had a sweep of gites in our region (Poitou Charente) as I know a lot of us have received the demand.
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Bassman
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Post by Bassman »

Thanks for the update petitbois, do you know if you have to pay for each gite and telly?
These extra costs have been coming in recently bit by bit it like they dont want use to make money just offer a service :?
petitbois
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Post by petitbois »

the accompanying letter should say how much they estimate you need to pay - flat fee for up to 9TVs is how we interpreted it, but maybe we have a different letter as we have B&B as well as gites
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

Just thought I would revive this thread, as I have just had a visit from the man from SACEM. I had previously ignored the demands for paying the audio-visual tax as I had understood, like many others, that gites weren't included in the tax regime but it appears that this was wrong, so it looks like I will have to cough up the money.
He said we would need to pay for each television in the gites and that the amount would be the same as the audiovisual tax we pay ourselves, €137.
As they are paying house calls they must think that they are going to raise a lot of revenue i.e. a lot of people aren't paying yet.
I am inclined to remove the TVs from the gites and only supply if the clients request them, so few people watch the TV when they're with us.
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

A further update on this from me. I got a letter this week demanding 274€ for the 2 teles in the gites PLUS a fine of 150€ for late payment, we're off to Perigeux next week to appeal against the late payment fine but it looks like we have no alternative other than to pay up and smile.
la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

The SACEM isn't the same as the taxe audiovisuelle, it is a tax on the diffusion of music. The taxe audiovisuelle is a TV licence and I have always paid that for the 3 TVs in my gites. It works out at around 380€ a year. The SACEM was only around 115€ per year for all my gites. There have been a lot of contrôles recently of gites who have never declared their televisions in my area recently.
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oasiscouple
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Post by oasiscouple »

La vache is correct. In Dusty's case this is nothing to do with SACEM, it is just the normal TV licence and normally is charged with your Taxe d'habitation and if you have more than one property, as we have, you only pay once, presumably on the basis that you can't watch TV in two places at once. Might be different if your second property is declared as a gite which ours isn't. Dusty might be able to talk her/his way out of the fine by pleading not being French and not understanding the system. Sometimes works with polite smiles.
Honi soit qui peu y boit
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

Thanks for the clarity le vache and oasiscouple. We do pay for our own TV via taxe d'habitation and showed this to the man who came round but he said that this was different as the gites were classed transmitting to the public and hence were subject to a 'contribution à l'audiovisual public'. Anyway I have asked for an appointment to talk to the relevent department in Periguieux next monday and we'll see how we get on there. If we need to pay we'll pay, but I do object to paying a fine for the late payment of something we didn't know we had to pay.
I suspect that as we are set up as auto-entrepeneurs for the gites then the charge is levied as its classed as transmitting to the public, but hopefully all will become clear when we meet the man in charge.
Les Marronniers
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SACEM and SPRE

Post by Les Marronniers »

Does anyone know how Article 12 of the SACEM contract is supposed to work? We notified them of the fact that due to illness we were only open for 4 nights this summer season, but we have received a bill (complete with threatening letter) for the whole year.

And SPRE - what is that? Why is it additional to the already insane interpretation of SACEM that we are making public performances by letting our gite guests watch television?
Les Marronniers
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SACEM and SPRE

Post by Les Marronniers »

Does anyone know how Article 12 of the SACEM contract is supposed to work? We notified them of the fact that due to illness we were only open for 4 nights this summer season, but we have received a bill (complete with threatening letter) for the whole year.

And SPRE - what is that? Why is it additional to the already insane interpretation of SACEM that we are making public performances by letting our gite guests watch television?
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

Hi Les Maronniers, we went to our local tax office to talk to them about it as we were not only charged for the TVs but were also fined for not having paid a tax that we didn't even know about! Once we explained that we were willing to pay the tax but didn't think the fine was fair she said that she would waive the fine. I asked her whether we would be reminded that we need to pay the tax next year she told us that we wouldn't be reminded as we're not VAT registered! Apparently if you're VAT registered they remind you but if not you have to remember.
They weren't interested in how many days we opened, if you supply a TV then you're liable for the tax. I said that I would remove the TV as most guests were english and wouldn't watch french TV anyway. She then asked if we provided internet as people can watch TV over the net? Oh oh I thought, here we go, but she checked and internet is exempt....for the moment!

Anyway, might be worth a visit to the tax office to see if anything can be done.
Good luck
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