Did you get a “bonus” or exceptional compensation from your employer at the end of 2021? How is this premium taxed? Where to declare it? It all depends on its nature.
The deadline for declaring income is approaching. Taxpayers who reside in departments 55 and beyond still have until June 8 to file their declaration online. Here’s how to declare your premiums to the tax authorities.
“Classic” salary bonus: to be declared
Here is the general rule: bonuses, gratuities or salary variables received in 2021 all simply include your taxable salary. If this bonus was included in your December bulletin, it is theoretically taken into account in the ” net taxable salary » annual figure appearing on this same form, and it has already been subject to the withholding tax: you still have to declare it (based on the annual “net taxable”) in the declaration with all of your income for 2021.
The situation is the same for a possible ” christmas bonus paid each year by the company, or for an exceptional collective bonus linked to a particular event: this bonus will increase your “net taxable”.
The only exception: if you received this one-time bonus in January 2022. Then it will increase your taxable income for the year 2022. To be declared, but next spring.
Prime Macron: tax-exempt
The “exceptional purchasing power bonus”, also called “PEPA” but more commonly ” Macron premium », has once again been renewed, after having been introduced for the first time at the end of 2018 in response to the Yellow Vests crisis.
This is a totally tax-free premium (no tax or social security contributions) but this tax advantage remains subject to conditions. First condition, for the Macron bonuses paid in 2021: you do not declare it if it does not exceed 1,000 euros and if you do not receive a salary greater than three Smic (about 3,800 euros net). The tax-exempt premium – and therefore exempt from declaration – can even reach 2,000 euros in the event of a profit-sharing agreement in your company.
Neobanks: the cheapest offers to control your budget
To sum up: with some exceptions, if you received a Macron bonus in 2021, it does not increase your “net taxable” on your payslip, and this amount therefore does not have to be declared.
Should you include the Macron bonus in your tax return?
Profit-sharing or profit-sharing bonus: cash or savings
It all depends on whether you choose to “take the cash”, requesting the payment of this bonus, or whether you choose to invest this money, the default option. Depending on the company, in the event of an existing agreement and sufficient profits, participation and/or profit-sharing are paid to employees at the end of the calendar year or in the spring (before the end of May).
Incentive and participation: what are your options?
If you choose to invest this money in an employee savings plan (PEE, Perco, or new company PER), you are exempt from income tax! The gross premium is still subject to the CSG-CRDS, but you do not have to declare these sums to the tax authorities.
If you claim the immediate payment of all or part of this bonus, it includes your salary income. In the case of a profit-sharing bonus paid during or at the end of 2021, this bonus increased your salary for May 2021 or your last salary of the year. The premium has mechanically increased your “net taxable” 2021: an amount to be declared to the tax authorities in the spring of 2022.
Severance bonuses: several special cases
The case of compensation received in the event of departure from the company or in the event of retirement is more complex.
Regarding retirement, the former option of tax spreading of the departure bonus no longer exists since 2020, in the continuity of the reform of the withholding tax. You can still use the quotient system to limit the taxation of income from your departure year.
Regarding compensation for termination of an employment contract, everything depends on the starting conditions. Legal severance pay is totally tax exempt. Beyond a certain threshold, and outside the job protection plan, severance pay and compensation paid on the occasion of a conventional termination may be taxed.
These severance pay that escape the taxman