Tax policy directorate – Bureau a

III – ASSESSMENT AND PAYMENT OF THE TAX 
Companies calculate and pay tax voluntarily in instalments, an adjustment being made when the final 
results of the period have been established. 
Filing and payment deadlines for companies liable to corporation tax have been harmonised.
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Businesses with 31 December year-ends have until the following 15 May to settle their corporation tax 
for the previous financial year. 
Large companies whose turnover is more than €250 million must anticipate the amount of tax owed for 
the year when they pay their final corporation tax instalment.
Any tax credits relating to foreign investment income included in the tax base are deducted from the 
gross tax. These tax credits correspond to the withholding tax on such income. 
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Article 20 of the 2012 Supplementary Budget Act no. 2012-1510 of 29 December 2012. 

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CHAPTER 2: 
PERSONAL INCOME TAX 
Personal income tax is in principle a comprehensive tax levied on an individual’s total income in a 
given year. Unless otherwise provided, all income, regardless of origin, is aggregated to give an overall 
net income to which a single tax scale is applied. 
The scale has progressive income bands. However, there are many provisions in the method for 
calculating income tax that allow taxation to be adjusted to personal circumstances.
The 2013 Budget Act amended the tax regime for investment income (dividends and similar income, 
revenue from fixed-income securities), which is now subject to the progressive income tax scale.
Personal income tax is assessed annually on a tax household’s taxable income in a given calendar 
year, declared the following year. 
Personal income tax yielded €69.3 billion in 2015.
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Annex to the Budget Bill for 2017: Évaluations des voies et moyens. Vol. I: Les évaluations de recettes. 
Article 60 of the 2017 Budget Act no. 2016-1917 of 29 December 2016 established a deduction-at-source 
system for personal income tax, to take effect from 1 January 2018.
This system aims to modernise income tax collection. Payment of tax due for the current year will be made 
as and when taxpayers receive their income. The deduction-at-source system will be implemented as 
follows: 
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for wages, salaries, pensions and substitution income, tax will be deducted at source by the payer 
(employer, pension fund or social security bodies); 
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for taxpayers with self-employed income, rental income from property and certain other kinds of 
income, the tax administration will collect instalments towards tax due for the current year by directly 
debiting the taxpayer's bank account. 
The deduction-at-source system will be based on the most recent information available to the tax 
administration for each taxpayer. 
This system will not change the rules for calculating income tax. It will notably lessen the impact for 
households (especially with regard to cash management) of the current one-year lag, for most categories of 
income, between the time income is received and when tax is due. 
To avoid taxpayers having to pay tax on two years of income in 2018 (for income received in 2017 and in 
2018), an exceptional tax credit will be granted (known as the “tax credit for the modernisation of income tax 
collection”): This tax credit will cancel the tax on non-exceptional income in 2017 within the scope of the 
reform, while maintaining the benefit of tax breaks and tax credits for eligible expenses in the same year. 
Lastly, this measure does not alter the tax assessment rules. Taxpayers will still be required to file income 
tax returns in year Y+1 for income received in year Y.

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