Enough to relieve a good number of bank accounts.
The painful has arrived in mailboxes and email boxes. Every year, the end of summer coincides with the sending of the property tax notice. A tax letter much dreaded by the 32 million property owners because its amount continues to increase, every year. 2024 is no exception to the rule with at least a 3.9% increase for everyone. This bill must be paid by all property owners. All of them, or almost.
The law provides for certain provisions allowing a section of the population not to pay this tax. Among them, retirees. Thousands of them are exempt from this tax on their property, automatically, without having to take a single step. The tax authorities know by themselves (thanks to a cross-referencing of information) from whom they should not claim property tax. In total, more than a million retirees benefit from this system, according to the latest official figures.
The total exemption is only permitted by law with regard to two criteria: the age and income of the owners. For the first, you must be 75 years old or older on the previous January 1st. That is to say, a person who celebrated his 75th birthday in February or March will not be able to benefit from it.
Then, a resource threshold must not be exceeded. Constantly increasing every year, at the same rate as inflation, the ceiling has been set, for the year 2023 in mainland France, at 12,455 euros for a single person and at 19,107 euros for a married couple. for example.
If the amount of 2023 income, declared in spring 2024 by the person or couple, is lower than these ceilings and the declarants were 75 years old on January 1, then there will be no property tax to pay.
Created in 1965, this system benefits the oldest and most modest retirees. The established income ceiling corresponds to 1037 euros per month for a single person and less than 1600 euros per month for two. For younger retirees, an automatic reduction of 100 euros in property tax is applied from the age of 65 if the resources are below the same thresholds.