this boost from Bercy to start the year

Employment of an employee at home, childcare costs, overseas tax reductions… No less than 9 million taxpayers will receive a 60% advance on their reductions and tax credits on Wednesday January 15 2025. “Deducting any immediate advances of personal services tax credit already received in 2024”warns Bercy. For a total amount paid by the tax administration of 5.8 billion euros. By next Wednesday, eligible households will receive an email alerting them to the availability of an information document in their personal space on impots.gouv.fr.

While France is still looking for a budget and Bercy is consulting everywhere, the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFiP) has confirmed that the absence of a finance bill – and in particular a revaluation of the scale of income tax – does not pose a problem for the application of the mechanism.

“The RICI advance (reductions and tax credits, Editor’s note) being calculated in relation to the 2023 income declared in 2024, the non-revaluation of the scale has no impact on its amount”confirms the tax authorities in a FAQ published on its website. According to Bercy, the average amount distributed per beneficiary amounts to 639 euros.

As a reminder, among the tax reductions and credits eligible for the advance mechanism include: the employment of an employee at home, childcare costs, the Scellier, expenses linked to dependency or even union dues. Please note, however, that this list is limited to around ten devices considered to give rise to recurring expenses. In fact, it excludes a large number of tax expenditures.

Concretely, the advance is paid into the bank accounts of taxpayers registered in their particular space on impots.gouv.fr. The transfer is labeled “ADVANCE CREDIMPOT”. For households that do not have a bank account known to the tax services, the amount will be sent to their home by check. “The minimum advance amount is 8 euros. Below this threshold, it is not paid”warns the Public Treasury.

Important detail, the advance is also not paid to taxpayers eligible for the system for the first time this year. The latter will have to be patient and will receive the entire amount linked to their reductions and tax credits during next summer.

As every year, it is the income declaration, completed by households in the spring, which allows the tax administration to regularize the amounts paid in reductions and tax credits. In the summer, Bercy carries out a “regularization”: namely, either an additional payment of the advance distributed in January or, on the contrary, a request for reimbursement of an overpayment, with regard to the expenses actually incurred during of the tax year.

This scenario occurs, for example, if a household has reduced the number of hours worked by its employee at home, or even stopped employing them the previous year, but forgot to report this to the tax administration before mid-December. The taxpayer must then reimburse Bercy for the advance wrongly received in January. And “reinforced controls are carried out each year by the tax administration to combat fraud relating to the payment of these sums”, warns the General Directorate of Public Finances in a press release.