The deadline for declaring your income has passed? Or is it dangerously approaching if you are one of those who have until June 8? Be careful, a delay can be very expensive. And the more the delay increases, the more the penalties climb!
Slight delay: an increase of 10%
When you declare your income late, you complete a late declaration. The penalty: a 10% increase in income tax.
First reflex: hasten to rectify the situation in order to limit the penalties. Your pre-filled declaration remains accessible on impots.gouv.fr in your personal space until the end of June. After June 30, the online declaration space closes and you must complete a declaration in paper format.
Automatic declaration = zero delay?
About 11 million taxpayers are affected by the automatic declaration (those whose information and income are already known to the tax services), as in 2020 and 2021. If the data does not require any modification and the interested parties therefore do not take any action on the declaration of income pre-filled, the process is deemed to have been carried out, which de facto prevents a delay.
Consequently, if you are eligible for the automatic declaration and you log on to impots.gouv.fr late in order to modify the declaration, you will be filling out a corrective declaration and not a late declaration. Good news: the penalties are much lower. It is still advisable to correct as soon as possible in order to avoid possible late interest.
How to correct your tax return
If you are not eligible for automatic declaration, and unless there is a valid reason to explain your delay, you will not escape the increase. But it is now a question of avoiding additional penalties. And therefore to file your late declaration spontaneously, before receiving a formal notice from the tax authorities. Don’t panic: if this is your first mishap, you will not receive a formal notice immediately. The tax authorities begin with a follow-up letter, by simple mail, the formal notice being the subject of a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt. On the other hand, if you are regularly late in your declarations (a failure during the last three years), the tax authorities can directly issue the formal notice.
A delay in good faith: no penalty?
A justified delay? The tax authorities may be tolerant, and therefore decide to exempt you from penalties. The prevailing principle is that of good faith, as the Bercy mediator has explained on several occasions in his annual reports. The mediator details, for example, the case of a late filing by a woman who thought she had submitted her declaration online within the legal timeframe, without any material proof. But the mediator relied on the fact that this was his first declarative anomaly to grant him a free exceptional discount.
Taxes: what penalty for a late first declaration?
Late payment interest of 0.20% per month
In addition to the tax increase, late payment interest is added: 0.20% per month, which corresponds to 2.40% per year. In the case of an oversight corrected a few days after the deadline, in June, the penalty remains a simple increase of 10%, without late payment interest.
Formal notice: an increase of 20%, then 40%, or even more!
Didn’t respond to the first reminder letter? Or have you already been guilty of late filing? You risk receiving a formal notice to pay from the Public Treasury. Immediately, the income tax increase increases to 20%. You then have 30 days to submit to your reporting obligation.
Otherwise, the increase increases to 40%, and you lose the benefit of certain advantages. If you continue to wallow in silence, the tax authorities can pass even heavier penalties, such as an 80% increase, in particular in the event of discovery of the exercise of an occult activity (undeclared or illicit).
Non-taxable? Beware the loss of benefits
All these late penalties are calculated as a percentage of the tax due. In other words, in the absence of tax, the penalty remains zero… But non-taxable taxpayers still have an interest in filing a declaration on time. On the one hand, when you receive a formal notice, the tax authorities can withdraw the benefit of tax advantages (credits and tax reductions, etc.). On the other hand, not completing a declaration does not allow you to have a non-taxation notice: a notice useful for making a request for RSA, an allowance from the Caf, etc.
Non-taxable households, how the declaration is useful to you