You will be able to complete your next tax return online from Thursday 13 April. And to make this spring drudgery easier for you, the establishments in which you hold investments will send you a tax form. Here’s how to use it well.
The tax return is back. The 2023 declaration campaign begins on Thursday 13 April. For taxable taxpayers, it is rarely a piece of cake, especially with regard to life insurance, which has a complex tax treatment. But, to avoid pulling your hair out (too much), you can rely on the tax document sent by your bank. Code name: IFU. Decryption in 7 questions and answers.
1. What is the IFU used for?
These three letters designate unique tax form. This is a summary document summarizing all income from taxable movable capital paid to you last year, including interest from your bankbook. The IFU will therefore help you declare your tax income and/or check that the amounts pre-filled by the tax authorities are correct.
In detail, the single tax form is made up of 3 sheets: sheet no. 2561 which summarizes the most common products, sheet no. (FCPR, FPCI, and FPI), and the n2561 ter slip which is used to justify certain tax credits from which you can benefit (tax credit on certain foreign assets in particular).
2. are you affected by the single tax form?
If you held in 2022 at least an investment product and you have earned interest or dividends from it, you are concerned by the IFU. More concretely, this is the case if you have savings accounts – excluding Livret A, Livret de développement durable et solidaire (LDDS) and other regulated savings accounts which are not taxable -, term accounts, bonds, shares investment funds, a retirement savings plan, or shares held or not in a share savings plan (PEA) or a securities account.
If you have had a Housing Savings Plan (PEL) since 2018, or if you opened one more than 12 years ago, it will also be mentioned in the tax form… These PELs are taxable. The same applies to interest earned on housing savings accounts (CEL) opened from 2018.
3. What should you report on your tax return?
The main interest of the IFU is to help you complete your tax return. The printout associated with the gains generated by your various investments in the corresponding boxes in your tax return, which facilitates its verification. Indeed, although the amounts presented in the IFU are also those that were sent to the tax authorities, transmission incidents may have occurred.
In doing so, your tax return may still contain errors that you will need to correct. The IFUs received will therefore be useful for you to check that the pre-filled amounts are correct, in particular the one reported in box 2TR, which concerns interest and fixed income investment products (tax savings accounts, PEL, etc.).
The IFU, a valuable ally for life insurance
Life insurance is a very common savings product. According to INSEE, 4 out of 10 households in France have one. However, it has a complex tax framework. The IFU, and more specifically its section income from life insurance contracts and similar products (sheet 2561), is therefore a particularly valuable aid.
It makes it possible to distinguish life insurance contracts opened more than 8 years ago from those which have not yet reached their tax maturity. It also differentiates between gains from payments made before and after September 27, 2017 and taking into account the tax option chosen (scale or single flat-rate deduction).
4. Who provides you with the single tax form?
While your tax form is sent to you by the tax authorities, the IFU is sent to you in anticipation of the tax declaration, generally at the beginning of April, by the paying institutions, that is to say, in the majority of cases, by the bank or banks with which you hold savings products. If you have dispatched your investments in several brands, you will therefore receive several IFUs, one per establishment.
For multi-bank taxpayers, the IFU is therefore not so unique… This requires juggling several documents, in addition to the income declaration form, and making the sum of the income from similar investments but held in different brands.
5. I did not receive IFU, is this normal?
You didn’t ask for your or your IFU. Your banks send them to you in anticipation of the opening of the tax declaration campaign. The single tax form can be sent to your home in paper format.
But more and more banks, including institutions with agencies, make it available to you in your online customer area. If your bank has forgotten you, or you have parked your IFU, you can find it in your personal space.
If you have dormant savings books, it may be normal not to receive any IFU. If the tax due is less than 50 euro cents per savings product, the amounts are ignored by the tax authorities.
6. With direct debit, is the IFU still useful?
Thanks to the deduction at source and the automatic declaration, more than 11 million taxpayers can escape, or almost, the declaration of income. Mainly among those who have income taxed at source that can be pre-filled by the tax services.
But the tax authorities do not have, for all taxpayers, access to all the information allowing them to calculate the total amount of income tax due. Certain resources, such as property income or certain specific allowances cannot be pre-declared..
This is why, in 2023, at least a third of users will have to continue to file an income tax return. In any case, check your IFU carefully if you are eligible for automatic declaration, a check is still recommended to ensure that the tax authorities take into account the correct earnings for 2022.
7. Can we blindly trust the IFU?
On the MoneyVox forum, it happens that contributors echo errors in received IFUs. But, in fact, they are rather rare and the banks, in the event of identified errors, send back a new corrective tax form. They are vigilant because banks can be held liable in the event of erroneous IFUs.
In any case, this is the decision rendered in 2016 by the Court of Cassation in a tax adjustment case for failure to declare taxable capital gains. However, these gains had not been entered in the tax form sent to the plaintiff couple. The bank was sanctioned and had to compensate its customers. In case of doubt, therefore, or amounts that seem inaccurate to you, nothing prevents you from reporting it to your bank.
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