Bad surprise for Joël and Patrick Roux, who inherited a large sum but who were forced to pay almost all of it.
Poisoned gift. Sometimes the best intentions turn into a real curse, and that’s what happened to two French brothers, Patrick and Joël Roux. The latter lost their Swiss cousin a few years ago, when the old man died at the end of 2018 in a Swiss nursing home. Having no children, the man decided to designate his two cousins as heirswho were assigned the sum of €125,000 through the bank account of the deceased, and €90,000 through a savings account. Only instead of being able to receive this sum, the two brothers had to settle many administrative obligations which quickly made them disillusioned.
First we had to settle their little cousin’s last bills, worth around 15,000 euros. There then remained 200,000 euros which were then well filtered not by one, but by two different tax authorities: that of France and that of Switzerland. An incongruous situation which clearly contributed to reducing the gift made by their Swiss cousin, as Joël Roux explained to the Parisian. “The Swiss tax authorities levied 55% tax on the entire estate. And then a year later, we received a letter from the French tax authorities asking us to regularize the situation by paying 60% tax on the inheritance! It was crazy, we thought it was a mistake…”
A letter to Emmanuel Macron
Unfortunately for them, no error had been committed for these calculations. Joël and Patrick Roux therefore had to pay no less than 115% tax on the amount received, i.e. a total of 18,000 euros straight out of their pocket.. Still according to the words of one of the brothers reported by the Parisian, none of their efforts could allow them to miss these amounts to be paid. “I moved heaven and earth, called dozens of tax services to get answers to this grotesque situation. I even wrote to the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, and to Bruno Le Maire (…)”. But what caused this situation? the distant relationship between the deceased and the beneficiaries of his inheritance first of all, giving rise to a high tax rate, but also because succession agreements between France and Switzerland which can sometimes give rise to rather complex situations… In the end and after all the legal deductions, the two brothers found themselves with 15,000 euros in allto split into two.