Local taxes and parking spaces
Was tax on car parking space fair?
WE RENT car park space next door and underneath our building. Last year we received a taxe d’habitation demand for it for the first time after we had been here three years. As a parking space is not for living in, is this right? C. H.
Any property owned or rented gives rise to taxe d’habitation and foncière, the former being due by the person using it, the owner paying the latter.
A charge on a private parking space is legitimate.
As to the reason for the delay in charging, then the first is that the charge is only due on the person in the property on January 1 each year, unless whoever does pay the charge decides to time apportion it between the people who have shared the property during the course of the calendar year but in that case this is an arrangement between the users of the property.
For this reason, if you were not using the property on January 1 of the first year you had use of the parking space, then that is one year for which you would have avoided the charge.
The second reason is sometimes it takes time for the information about the new people in a property to filter through to the relevant departments that issue these bills, so yes, there are occasions when years are missed.
Thirdly, when people move out, sometimes the tax office does not have the new address to which to send the bills that are relevant to them.
Consequently, it is only when the tax office finds the previous tenant, that they learn of the new tenant - you - and, with time taken to find all this out, as for the above point, years can be missed.
However the charge can be levied for the current and the previous tax year. The tax office will evidently issue the current year’s charge first but may, subsequently, issue the previous year’s charge.
