Bruno Le Maire recognizes “a bug” on the housing tax

“It is not a bug in the “Manage my real estate” platform, set up by the tax authorities this year, but “it is indeed a bug because the declarations arrived by mistake”, admitted Mr. Le Maire on Franceinfo, without going into further detail as to the responsibilities in this affair.

These taxpayers, “in general, put the names of their children in their declarations, there was undoubtedly an excess of goodwill on their part,” he said.

“Certainly errors were made, but in any case it was not that of the platform,” he insisted.

According to Mr. Le Maire, these are “a few thousand” errors “out of several million declarations”.

“The correction will be automatic, the general directorate of public finances will take care of it, taxpayers have nothing to do: when there is an error it is the administration which must correct it, this will be the case,” said -he affirmed.

Numerous cases of young people being asked for housing taxes, particularly for a "secondary residence" which would be their parents' home, have appeared since the start of the month.

“As every year, marginal errors could be observed in these opinions,” recognized the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFiP) in a statement sent to AFP.

This is particularly the case for users who have recently moved, with the DGFiP emphasizing that notices issued in the name of minor children were “more marginal errors”.

“The number of requests for DGFIP services since the beginning of November by taxpayers” remains “similar to that of last year,” she added.

She further indicated that the number of tax notices on second homes sent since November 7 has increased by 3% compared to 2022, an increase according to her "consistent with the sociological and real estate demographic evolution of the country".

On Wednesday, the national union Solidaires Finances Publiques blamed the "Manage my real estate" campaign, largely responsible according to it for the increase of "nearly 70%" in the number of secondary housing taxes claimed by the tax authorities this year. year, compared to last year.

“Some families have seen a secondary housing tax arrive in the name of their son or daughter, whether he or she is 2 years old or 7 years old!”, assured the union in a press release.

Owners, from the same source, would also have received a council tax notice for elements such as a balcony.

Solidaires Finances Publiques, which is calling for more jobs, estimated on this occasion that “the ideological dogmatism marked by the dominant thought that digital technology can and must solve everything must stop”.