Are you unsure between the standard deduction and the actual costs for your tax return? A free, public online service will help you find the best option to reduce your tax.
For employees, it’s the same dilemma that comes up every year when filing income: is it better to choose the 10% flat-rate deduction or opt for the deduction of actual costs? If the first regime has the advantage of simplicity, the second can nevertheless prove to be much more advantageous for those who use their personal vehicle to travel to work daily.
Indeed, the real expenses regime allows transport expenses incurred for the journey between home and work to be deducted from taxable income, within a limit which appears to be quite generous. Up to a distance of 40 km between your home and your place of work, or 80 km round trip per day, the entire mileage is taken into account in the calculation of actual costs. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of employee drivers are affected.
The amount of actual costs deducted is calculated by applying a scale to the distance traveled annually for the home-work journey, and this is where things get complicated, because it is not easy to precisely assess the amount final costs thus calculated. But good news, the tax administration provides all taxpayers with an online simulator allowing them to instantly calculate the amount of mileage expenses deductible from their income, based on some very simple information, namely the type of engine, vehicle , tax power and the number of kilometers traveled per year between home and work.
Accessible free of charge at https://www.impots.gouv.fr/simulateur-bareme-kilometrique, this service allows you to calculate in a few seconds the mileage costs deductible from your income and to quickly compare the result to the deduction flat rate of 10%. For example, for a thermal automobile with a power of 5 HP used 225 days per year to go to work, the actual deductible costs in 2024 would amount to €2,862 for a daily round trip of 20 km, and to €4,608 for 40 km daily.
For an employee declaring €28,000 or less in annual income and living 10 km from work, the actual expenses regime would therefore be more advantageous than the flat-rate deduction. And for those working 20 km from their home, the actual costs will be more attractive than the reduction up to €46,000 in annual income.
Be careful, however, opting for actual expenses involves declaring additional income, in particular allowances and reimbursement of expenses paid by the employer. Thus, even if the amount deductible for actual costs is higher than the standard deduction of 10%, the final amount of tax payable may be higher. However, this factor only concerns employees receiving reimbursements intended to cover the expenses subject to the deduction, but many taxpayers who have a sedentary job do not receive such reimbursements from their employer.