Tax Credit for Gardening Services
Tax Credit for Gardening Services
19th Dec 2022
Tax relief is available for those who need assistance with garden maintenance.
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The tax credit is called 'crédit d’impôt emploi domicile' or more generically as 'crédit d’impôt services à la personne'.
It is amongst twenty-six domestic services activities carried out in your home eligible for tax relief.
Eligible Persons
The relief is not restricted to those who are elderly or infirm; anyone is entitled, provided the property is your principal residence.
It is also possible to use it on a second home in France, but only if you are resident and the property is not let out.
Both tenants and owner-occupiers are eligible.
Children who engage services for their parents can also obtain the tax credit.
Eligible Work
The relief is only available for routine garden maintenance. Earthworks, landscape park design, as well as agricultural and forestry services are specifically excluded.
The eligible works are called petits travaux de jardinage, representing occasional tasks that do not require a specific qualification. These include fruit and vegetable picking, brush clearing work, lawn-cutting, and trimming hedges and shrubs.
Employee or Contractor
You can choose to engage an employee or have the work undertaken by an approved business or other organisation, provided the business is accredited as an 'organisme de services à la personne'.
As there is a fair degree of administration involved in engaging an employee, including payment of social security contributions, it is possible to use an accredited business or association.
Contact details of local services can be found at Bénéficier des SAP.
There will of course be a charge for using a contractor, so for those who feel competent enough to manage the process themselves, you can use the service provided through Chèque Emploi-Service Universel. We will provide more information on the operation of this service in a future article.
Level of Tax Relief
The amount of the tax credit varies according to the expenses incurred by the individual employer, up to a maximum of €5,000 for garden maintenance expenses per year.
The tax credit is 50% of the eligible expenditure, meaning that the maximum amount of the tax credit is €2,500.
If you do not pay this much in tax, then you will receive a cheque for the balance from the tax authority and if you pay no income tax you would be eligible for a payment of €2,500 a year, on €5,000 eligible expenditure.
The expenditure is taken into account in calculation of the ceiling limit of €12,000 (up to €18,000 in first year and €20,000 for disabled persons) in expenditure for all services that may be claimed under the crédit d’impôt services à la personne.
Administration
If you use a contractor, they must send you before March 31 of year N +1 an annual tax certificate in order to allow you to benefit from the tax advantage for year N. The invoices alone cannot be used for this purpose.
There is no need to attach the certificate to your tax return, but it will serve as proof in case of tax audit. You declare the work on either lines 7DB, 7DF or 7DD of your tax return (2042 RICS). Simply enter "jardinage" in the "Quel Service?" section.
In order the mitigate the delay between payment for the work and receipt of the tax credit the following year, 60% is paid in January of each year, with the balance in the summer/autumn, after submission of your tax return.
Since June 2022, if you use a personal services organisation, you can benefit from the immediate advance of the tax credit. The service provider will be able to provide you with details of how to obtain it. You can also do so if you engage someone on a salaried basis. You simply make your periodic declaration to URSSAF, and you deduct 50%. It is called 'l'avance immediate.'
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