End of Year Tax Adjustments Upwards an Absolute Killer this Year!

I suspect many here with gites can relate to our situation. Our gite income this year has been miserly. In contrast we had our best year in 2019.
In addition, the tax office last year made an error with regard to social taxes on our rental, first took too much, then reduced our monthly prelevement to compensate. They have now decided they got it wrong (twice) and are clawing back in the last four months what they say we owe them for last year.
So - we have a seriously large double whammy - money they are recouping from underpayment last year AND a sharp adjustment upwards from September based on our actual good earnings for 2019 that they now have from our tax return.
The money they are recouping we just have to accept but I wondered if there is any appeal process for the upward adjustment based on what they assume (quite wrongly) we will have earned this year.
OH says weā€™ll just have to grin and bear it and that the tax will be adjusted back down in 2021 when we do our 2020 return at the beginning of next year.
But I was just wondering if that really is the case. There must be many, many people in the tourism industry who are facing the same horrible tax adjustment upwards when in fact 2020 in reality has been dire.
Has anyone had experience of getting their year end adjustment reduced back down? Any suggestions/experience anyone would be much appreciated. Thanks

I really feel for you!

I have no direct experience of your precise situation but on one occasion, three years after the event (!) the tax office sent a demand for nearly 4K which they had erroneously refundedā€¦

So I toddled along and whilst we clearly did owe the money, I did at least manage to negotiate a payment schedule over two years.

Good luck! X

Iā€™m no expert on this but I do remember seeing something on the Impots site aboit adjusting your monthly (assessment) payments. If all else fails maybe (as Stella always says) pop in and see them. Iā€™ve found them to be pretty human.

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Contesting any fiscal decision from the DGFIP generally requires writing to the local Service des Impots with written justification and referencing the relevant provisions of the fiscal code. You can be in for a long wait pending a decision, and just might trigger a ā€œcontrĆ“le fiscalā€ for good measure. In the meantime, you will still have to pay the sums they are claiming. What you can do is negotiate payment terms by going to your local tax office, organising a meeting with the person familiar with your tax account, and discussing what you could afford. The current difficulty here is that not all local tax offices are running at full steam, at least if the echos I hear are true, so it might be difficult to actually get the appointment in the first place.

Thank you everyone for your comments. Much appreciated. The possibility that we might negociate an extended payment schedule sounds very appealing. Weā€™ve always found our local tax office to be very helpful.

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I believe that as @John_Scully says, there is a mechanism for adjusting payments under ā€˜Prelevement a la Sourceā€™ when exceptional circumstances cause a sudden and substantial change in income.

Just to update - weā€™ve decided to take all the pain this year. On reflection if ever there was a good time to have to cope we think itā€™s now. Weā€™re not going anywhere / doing anything so itā€™s a time when our daily expenditure is as low as itā€™s ever likely to be. And who knows what next year will hold?
Thanks again for the contributions.

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