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Your working life · 9 steps
Even with tax withheld at source, you file every spring: that return sets your real tax, triggers a refund or a balance and recalculates your rate from September. Checking it is how you get back what you're owed: expenses, tax credits, dependants, excess tax withheld. Here is the order, from getting ready to paying.
The return for last year's income opens in April, and the online deadline falls in the second half of May or early June depending on your département. Have your December payslip (year-to-date taxable pay), your statements from France Travail, CPAM or your pension fund, your donation receipts, your childcare invoices and your impots.gouv.fr login to hand.
A marriage, PACS, birth, separation or death during the year, a move: the first step of the return covers them, and a move must be reported even with an automatic return. If the event is recent, also report it online within 60 days, so your rate follows straight away. In the year of a marriage or PACS, you can choose one joint return or two separate ones: simulate both.
An automatic return does not mean nothing to check: you remain responsible for what is declared. Compare your salary (box 1AJ) with the year-to-date taxable pay on your December payslip and the tax already withheld (box 8HV) with your payslips; add any missing employer, and your dependants' income, which is never prefilled.
Add up your commuting at the mileage scale, your meals, your remote work and your other costs, then compare them with the flat deduction: actual expenses are only worth it if they exceed it. The choice covers all your salaries for the year, each member of the household chooses for themselves, and with actual expenses you add to your salary what your employer reimbursed.
Tick the sections that apply to you to bring up the right boxes: donations, home help, childcare, retirement savings, maintenance paid. Keep the receipts for at least 3 years, without sending them. Once you sign, the statement of your return (ASDIR) proves your income until the notice arrives, and you can still change your return as often as you like until the deadline.
Your rate is recalculated every September from this return, so it lags behind your income. Income going up or down, a couple who prefer the household rate to individual rates, an employer who shouldn't see your rate: you can change it online at any time, and the new rate applies within 1 to 3 months.
Your notice appears in your account in summer: a refund paid into your bank account, a balance to pay or nothing. A mistake? After the notice, the online correction service (Corriger ma déclaration en ligne) stays open until the autumn; after that, you can still file a claim until 31 December of the second year after the collection date. A good-faith mistake you correct yourself normally carries no surcharge.
A small balance is debited in one go in September, a larger one in instalments until December. If you can't keep up, ask for a payment schedule as soon as you get the notice, before the deadline, through secure messaging: a surcharge applies once the date has passed. If even more time is not enough, tax relief can reduce the debt, and raising your rate avoids another balance next year.
Even with no tax to pay, the return gives you a non-taxation notice, useful for some benefits, and the housing benefit simulator relies on your household's tax notices. If you work on modest earnings, claim the prime d'activité from CAF: it is never paid automatically, and it is worked out from the montant net social on your payslips.
Describe your situation: Nego tells you where to start, follows the checked steps of each procedure, does the calculations with the site's tools and drafts your letters. It does not replace the administration: each procedure is completed on the official service.
Yes. The return takes stock of the year: it works out your tax reductions and credits, triggers a refund or a balance and updates your withholding rate. Even with no income it is compulsory, and it gives you a non-taxation notice, useful for some benefits.
Add up your work expenses for the year (commuting, meals, remote work, training) and compare them with the 10% deduction, which has a minimum and a cap set each year: actual expenses are only worth it if they exceed it. The site's actual expenses tool makes the comparison and works out the tax both ways.
Because your rate is based on your latest return, so it lags behind your actual income: a pay rise, another source of income or a rate you haven't updated leave part of the tax unwithheld. The balance is debited from September; to stop it happening again, update your rate as soon as your income changes.
Rarely. Before the deadline, change your online return as often as you like. After the notice, use the online correction service (Corriger ma déclaration en ligne) while it is open; after that, file a claim, possible until 31 December of the second year after the collection date shown on your notice.
Ask for more time to pay as soon as you get the notice, ideally before the deadline, through your account's secure messaging, with the payment difficulties questionnaire and your evidence. The tax office replies within 2 months (4 for a complex case); if you keep to the agreed schedule, the surcharge can be waived. If even more time is not enough, ask for tax relief.
In summer, in your online tax account, with an email; this year's exact dates are on the procedure page. Since 2026, no paper notice is sent unless you asked for one. Your new rate applies from September.
Every rule mentioned here is explained and sourced in its procedure or guide; amounts are calculated by the site's tools. All procedures