Enough to relieve a good number of bank accounts.
The painful one 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 owners because its amount continues to increase, every year. 2024 is no exception to the rule with, at least, an increase of 3.9% for everyone. This bill, all property owners must pay it. All, or almost.
The law provides for certain provisions allowing a section of the population to not 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.
Full exemption is only permitted by law with regard to two criteria: the age and income of the owner. For the first, you must be 75 years old or older on 1er previous January. That is to say, a person having celebrated their 75the 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 metropolitan 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 1er January, 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.