Newsletter August 2024

Correcting your 2023 income tax return

If you have made a mistake on your last French tax return, you can use the online correction service available at www.impots.gouv.fr. This service is open from July 31 to December 4, 2024.

Possible changes

Most information can be modified: income, expenses, tax reductions and credits. However, you will not be able to change information such as your address, marital status, family situation (marriage, death, etc.) or the designation of a trusted third party. This year, a new feature concerns self-employed workers, who can rectify headings in the social section for the calculation of their personal contributions.

Following correction

Once the tax authorities have processed your amended tax return, you will receive a new tax notice showing your final tax liability. Your withholding tax rate and/or instalments will then be adjusted in the “Manage my withholding tax” section.

What to do after December 4?

If you need to correct your tax return after the telecorrection service has closed, you must submit a complaint by post to the tax office. You have until December 31, 2026 to submit a claim for the 2023 tax return.

Rupture conventionnelle requalified as employee resignation

The “rupture conventionnelle” offers the employer and employee the opportunity to terminate a permanent employment contract by mutual agreement. For this termination to be valid, it is essential that the employee’s consent is free and informed, so not obtained by error, fraud or violence. In the event of a defect in consent, judges may annul the contractual termination and reclassify it as a dismissal without real and serious cause. But what happens when it’s the employer who suffers a defect in consent?

A recent decision by the French Supreme Court (Cassation sociale, June 19, 2024, no. 23-10817) sheds light on this particular situation. In this case, an employee, a sales manager, had entered into a contractual termination agreement with his employer. He had argued that he wanted to retrain in management sector, but in reality was planning to set up a competing company in the same business filed, in collaboration with two former colleagues.
A year later, the employer took the case to court, claiming that his consent had been obtained through fraudulent maneuvers on the part of the employee.

The Toulouse Court of Appeal, followed by the French Supreme Court, established that the employee had deliberately concealed information crucial to the employer in order to obtain his agreement to the conventional termination. The judges concluded that the employer’s consent had been vitiated by the employee’s fraudulent maneuvers, resulting in the cancellation of the contractual termination. Consequently, the termination of the employment contract, attributed to the employee’s fault, was requalified as a resignation.

The employee was ordered to pay the employer compensation in lieu of notice of €20,334, corresponding to that due in the event of resignation. In addition, he was ordered to reimburse the severance pay he had received, amounting to €18,775.

Employee benefits: think vacation vouchers!

Which companies can benefit?

All companies, whatever their size, can offer vacation vouchers to all or some of their employees, whether on permanent (CDI) or fixed-term contracts (CDD).

What is the employer’s contribution?

Vacation vouchers must be paid for in part by the employer and in part by the employee. The employer’s contribution is exempt from social security charges, provided it does not exceed :
– 80% of the value of the vacation vouchers for salaries below €3,864
– 50% of the value of vacation vouchers for salaries over €3,864.

The remuneration taken into account corresponds to the beneficiary’s average monthly remuneration over the three months preceding the award.

THE OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED FROM 2 TO 25 AUGUST 2024 INCLUSIVE FOR ANNUAL LEAVE. WE WISH YOU A PLEASANT SUMMER !