Fr Personal Income Tax

France — Personal Income Tax (Impôt sur le Revenu) — Comprehensive Guide v1.0

General reference only. This skill is general tax/accounting reference material for AI-assisted workflows. It has not been reviewed for any specific person's facts, documents, elections, deadlines, residency, filing status, or local procedures. Do not rely on it to file, pay, amend, or take a tax position without review by a qualified professional in the relevant jurisdiction.

Based on work by Romain Simon (@romainsimon), licensed under MIT. Adapted for the OpenAccountants format.

Disclaimer: This skill is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax advice. All positions must be reviewed and signed off by a qualified expert-comptable or avocat fiscaliste before filing. Get this reviewed at openaccountants.com.

Section 1 — Quick Reference

Section 2 — Full IR Computation Sequence

Never skip a step. Each intermediate must be computed.

1. Revenus bruts par catégorie
   ↓ abattements spécifiques (10% salaires, 10% pensions, 40% dividendes if barème…)
2. Revenus nets catégoriels
   ↓ somme
3. Revenu brut global (RBG)
   ↓ déductions (PER, pension alimentaire, CSG déductible N-1)
4. Revenu Net Imposable (RNI)
   ↓ ÷ nombre de parts
5. Quotient
   ↓ application du barème progressif
6. Impôt par part
   ↓ × nombre de parts
7. Impôt brut
   ↓ plafonnement du gain QF
8. Impôt après QF
   ↓ décote (if impôt < threshold)
9. Impôt après décote
   ↓ − réductions d'impôt (floor at 0)
10. Impôt après réductions
    ↓ − crédits d'impôt (refundable — can be negative)
11. Impôt net
    + Prélèvements sociaux (separate, on capital income)
    + CEHR (if RFR > thresholds)
    + CDHR (if effective rate < 20% floor)
    = Total tax liability

Section 3 — Progressive Rate Table (Barème IR)

2025 Brackets (revenus 2025, déclaration 2026) — per part

Tranches LFI 2026 (revenus 2025, indexation +0.9%). Source: art. 197 CGI.

Worked Example — Single, RNI = EUR 40,000, 1 part

Section 4 — Abattements (Standard Deductions) by Income Category

Salary terminology trap:

Section 5 — Quotient Familial (Family Quotient)

Parts de base (base shares)

Majoration for children

Special cases:

• Shared custody (résidence alternée): half the above values (0.25 / 0.25 / 0.5)
• Disabled child (carte CMI-invalidité): +0.5 additional part
• Single parent (parent isolé, case T): +0.5 on first child

Examples

Plafonnement du gain QF (QF capping)

Critical mechanism often forgotten. The tax benefit from supplementary half-parts (children) is capped.

Algorithm:

tax_with_all_parts     = normal calculation with all parts
tax_without_children   = calculation with base parts only (1 or 2)
actual_gain            = tax_without_children − tax_with_all_parts

cap_per_half_part      = EUR 1,807 (revenus 2025)
nb_supplementary_halves = (total_parts − base_parts) × 2
max_gain               = cap_per_half_part × nb_supplementary_halves

final_tax = tax_without_children − min(actual_gain, max_gain)

Practical consequence: above approximately EUR 90,000–100,000 RNI for a couple with 2 children, the QF benefit plateaus at EUR 3,614 (2 × EUR 1,807).

Parent isolé (case T): the half-part for single parents has its own higher cap (EUR 4,273 for the first child-related part). Widowed with children: cap EUR 4,273.

Section 6 — Décote (Low-Income Smoothing)

Applied after QF plafonnement, before reductions/credits.

Formulas (revenus 2025)

The décote cannot make the tax negative (floor at 0).

Effective marginal rate in the décote zone

In the décote zone, each additional euro of income:

• Increases tax at the bracket rate
• Reduces the décote by 0.4525 × that amount

Effective marginal rate ≈ bracket_rate × 1.4525. A household in the 11% bracket can face ~16% effective marginal rate in the décote zone.

Section 7 — CEHR (Contribution Exceptionnelle sur les Hauts Revenus)

Base: RFR (revenu fiscal de référence), not RNI. Added on top of IR net. Art. 223 sexies CGI.

Smoothing possible over the average of the 2 preceding years.

Section 8 — CDHR (Contribution Différentielle sur les Hauts Revenus)

Distinct from CEHR. Imposes a 20% floor on effective tax rate for high-RFR households. Art. 224 CGI, created by LFI 2025 (loi n° 2025-127), extended by LFI 2026 until deficit < 3% GDP.

Mechanism: if (IR + CEHR) / adjusted RFR < 20%, the CDHR tops up the difference.

Automatic calculation by the administration after filing. Advance of 95% due between 1–15 December via impots.gouv.fr PAS service.

Typical profiles affected: executives with large PFU dividends (effective IR ~12.8% while RFR > 250k), business angels with large capital gains, RSU/BSPCE vesting years.

Section 9 — Prélèvement à la Source (PAS — Withholding at Source)

Two mechanisms

Rate types

Modulation

• Downward: allowed if estimated gap > 5%. Penalty 10% if gap > 10% and unjustified (art. 1729 G CGI).
• Upward: allowed without minimum threshold.
• Life change: marriage, PACS, birth, divorce, death — signal within 60 days (art. 204 I CGI).

Annual settlement

PAS is an advance, not final. Declaration in Apr-Jun N+1 leads to:

1. Definitive IR calculated on year N income
2. Compared with total withheld in N
3. Balance due (September N+1, spread if > EUR 300) or refund (July-August N+1)

January advance for tax credits

DGFiP pays a 60% advance mid-January based on N-2 expenses (emploi à domicile, garde d'enfant, dons, Pinel). Adjusted in summer N+1. Option to renounce in December if expense won't recur.

Section 10 — Deductions, Reductions, and Credits

Fundamental distinction

A EUR 1,000 deduction at TMI 30% saves EUR 300. A EUR 1,000 credit saves EUR 1,000.

Key deductions (act on RNI)

Key reductions (floor at 0)

Subject to the EUR 10,000 global cap (plafonnement des niches fiscales):

Outside the EUR 10,000 cap:

Key credits (refundable)

Global cap on tax incentives (plafonnement des niches fiscales)

EUR 10,000 per year (EUR 18,000 for specific overseas investments).

Devices "inside the cap" (Pinel, FCPI, etc.) are summed. If total exceeds EUR 10,000, the excess is lost (not reportable).

Devices "outside the cap" (charitable gifts, home help credit) are unlimited by this mechanism.

Section 11 — Special Cases

Revenus exceptionnels — Quotient mechanism

Smoothing for one-off income (RSU vesting, departure indemnity, exceptional bonus) that would artificially push through multiple brackets.

Formula (coefficient = 4):

supplementary_tax = [IR(ordinary_income + exceptional/4) − IR(ordinary_income)] × 4

Conditions:

• Income exceeds the average of taxable income over the 3 preceding years
• Exceptional, non-recurring character
• Explicit request on the declaration

Useless if the household is already at TMI 45% — the marginal rate doesn't change with division.

Non-residents

• Taxed only on French-source income (art. 164 A CGI)
• Minimum rate: 20% on fraction ≤ EUR 27,519 and 30% above (revenus 2025)
• No quotient familial beyond 2 parts; no décote
• Tax treaty analysis required — out of scope for complex cases

PUMA — Cotisation subsidiaire maladie

Affects individuals with low professional income but significant capital income.

Rate: 6.5% on (capital income − 50% PASS). Collected by URSSAF, not DGFiP. Non-deductible from IR.

Trap: commonly forgotten in FIRE / early-retirement simulations — adds ~6.5% on top of PS.

Year of marriage / PACS

Joint filing for the entire year (since 2011), or separate filing on option. Compute both to find more favourable.

Year of divorce / separation

Separate filing for the full year. Case T (parent isolé) available for the parent with sole custody.

Year of spouse's death

Joint filing from 1 January to date of death. Separate filing for the surviving spouse for the remainder.

Statute of limitations (droit de reprise)

Document retention: minimum 6 years (recommended: 10 years).

Section 12 — Conservative Defaults

Section 13 — Key Legal References

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