Nine million French households to receive tax credit money today

Almost nine million households are set to receive a payment today (January 17) to account for tax credit money owing to them for 2021.

If you are among the 8.7million tax households concerned by the measure, you should find the money in your bank account, labelled ‘AVANCE CREDIMPOT’.

Total payouts are estimated to amount to €5.3billion, or an average amount per household of around €600.

If the tax office does not have up-to-date bank account details for you, you will receive the money as a cheque in the post later this month.

The money relates to income tax credits or reductions for costs such as: Employing people in the home (nannies, cleaners…); childcare by a crèche, assistante maternelle, childminder etc; giving to charity; union membership fees or retirement home fees.

The payment will be equal to 60% of the tax credit/reduction money for eligible expenses that you obtained for 2020 income declared in spring 2021.

You can find the total figure of these previous tax credits and reductions on your last avis d’impôt sur le revenu.

Once your 2021 incomes have been declared this spring, there will be a payment of the remaining amount due in the summer, or a bill for repayment of all or part of the advance if you did not in fact have comparable expenses in 2021.

It was possible to avoid the latter by logging in to your personal space at impots.gouv.fr and selecting Prélèvement à la source and Gérer votre avance de réductions et crédits d’impôts so as to cancel your advance payment or reduce it by giving an estimate of your actual expenses in 2021. However, this had to be done by December 9, 2021.

Note that as of January 2022, if you employ someone in the home using the Cesu system, it is now possible to deduct your tax credit directly from the money you pay them, and the state will pay them the rest.

This ‘real time’ avance immédiate system is optional, and needs to be requested (see cesu.urssaf.fr).

The option will be available from April to people who pay accredited home service organisations to help them in the home, as opposed to employing someone directly.

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