A third grace period for the declaration of real estate

It is a question of "allowing all owners a serene declaration" and "ensuring fair taxation of taxpayers" after two postponements due to the influx of declarations, said the ministry.

“In recent days, many owners have validated the declaration of occupation of their real estate,” he argued.

Asked by AFP, the Directorate General of Public Finance (DGFiP) invoked "a problem of crowds" since the weekend, with 500.000 premises declared on Monday alone.

The deadline had already been postponed for the first time at the end of June by a month, from June 30 to July 31, the Ministry of the Economy then invoking "the influx of declarations", then a second time by only 24 hours, from June 31 July to August 1, due to a problem accessing the tax website.

The obligation to declare real estate for residential use came into force on January 1 in order to identify the premises still liable for the residence tax. This was abolished for all main residences in 2023, but remains liable for secondary residences.

On the tax site, each owner must indicate for each of his properties his situation: if it is empty, in what capacity he occupies it himself or decline the identity of a possible tenant.

No penalty

Latecomers are in principle liable to a fine of 150 euros but "as this is a new procedure", the DGFiP will show "benevolence" and "no penalty will be applied this year", specified the ministry.

For several weeks, public finance unions have denounced a poorly organized campaign, a source of extra work for tax officials and worries for taxpayers.

Questioned by AFP, the CGT Public Finances denounced Tuesday "an announced fiasco".

“In addition to the influxes of the last few days, the reform was carried out without testing the reliability of the computer applications,” lamented Frédéric Scalbert, national secretary of the second representative organization of the sector.

“As soon as there is a minimum of connections on the site, the server” does not hold, he added.

According to him, the additional period of 10 days will still be insufficient to absorb "at least 20% of the declarations" outstanding among those of the approximately 34 million owners concerned.

The DGFiP has not communicated the total number of declarations already made.

Damien Robinet, national secretary of Solidaires Finances publiques, the first public finance union, also deplored Tuesday "problems of unpreparedness".

In particular, he said he feared "cascading consequences", with less time for agents to manage other tasks, while positions were cut at the DGFiP and the latter also inherited tax management in 2022. of town planning.

He also spoke of a "failure", pointing to the lack of a paper form while some taxpayers have poor internet skills.

Solidaires Finances publiques had also reported "difficulties" in the processing by the tax administration of the declarations of the large owners who manage many properties. For these, the declarative campaign continues until the end of August.