Money/donations to be declared to tax authorities Jan 2026

Banking & Financial Tax & Social charges
,
1

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but I just came across this piece of dystopian news.

In 2026, if you receive any sum of money (or an object, for example jewelry, a vehicle, art etc.), even if it’s your parents or grandparents sending a gift, and regardless of how it is received (e.g. cash, cheque, bank transfer), you must declare this to the tax office. It’s not to say you will have to pay any tax on it, but if you don’t declare it you could be subject to a tax audit.

Small gifts, given at customary times may be considered a customary gift and not a donation, as long as it’s proportionate to the giver’s income.

It’s recommended to keep a note of each gift (e.g. the accompanying card with the gift), and make a careful note of the reason for giving (if paying by bank transfer etc).

I’ve no idea how strictly all of this will be monitored, but it’s worth being aware about it. My wife and I have started putting careful notes with each payment we send our daughter who’s at boarding school (e.g. payment for school books), just in case. Crazy times we’re living in.

2

Could you post a link to where you saw that please, Gareth? I wasn’t aware of it.

3

No problem, here’s one article about it. They had been talking about it on the radio recently.

2 Likes
4

I doubt this will come as an enormous shock to those who live in France, but I just have a feeling that this will not be ultra- religiously observed by many people :grin:

3 Likes
5

I’m surprised there isn’t a small sum mentioned which does NOT need to be declared to the Impots. Otherwise the Impots will find themselves swamped with Declarations. Imagine all the kids (young and old) who get small sums (pocket money) from visiting relations/birthdays/Christmas etc etc… :rofl:

EDIT: Seems there IS an exception

“There is only one: the customary gift. This is a gift given on the occasion of a special event (birthday, Christmas, wedding, passing an exam, etc.) and whose value remains proportionate to the means of the giver. A small Christmas transfer can therefore fall into this category. However, a large or unusual sum, even given for a specific event, must be declared: for example, €5,000 given by a retiree with modest means.”

ttps://www.lechorepublicain.fr/france-monde/actualites/declaration-obligatoire-des-dons-dargent-ou-dobjets-comment-faire-exceptions-on-repond-a-vos-questions_14794061/

6

So if you give a piece of jewellery to someone else, who is going to know? Can’t see anyone taking any notice of this unless its thousands of euros but doubt that will concern most people

7

Unless the school books cost more than €100,000 your daughter win’t need to pay tax :slightly_smiling_face: . Anyway I thought you always had to declare gifts (outside customary gifts and special occasion gifts)? And that the only difference from this year is the declaration must be online?

“Dématérialisation de la déclaration de don manuel et du don d’une somme d’argent
À partir du 1er janvier 2026, les dons de somme d’argent et les dons manuels devront être déclarés via un service en ligne. La déclaration devra s’accompagner du paiement par voie électronique des droits de donation éventuellement dus.
Seules les personnes dont la résidence principale n’est pas équipée d’un accès à internet ou qui indiquent à l’administration ne pas être en mesure de souscrire par voie électronique pourront continuer à utiliser le formulaire papier.
Ces règles sont fixées par le décret n°2025-1082 du 17 novembre 2025.
Cette page sera mise à jour dès la mise en place du nouveau service en ligne.”

2 Likes
8

Seems to me that the idea is for transparency for Tax purposes… dealt with swiftly by the powers that be.

Of course, those who need to do Paper declaration of their worldwide income will be able to do similarly with this “gift” declaration if their “gift/whatever” does not fall within the Exclusions.

and by advertising/emphasising the Tax Liabilities for both parties of any transaction… no-one should be able to say “I didn’t know… “

and they can keep themselves on the straight and narrow and sleep easily at night.:+1:

9

What does this mean overall ? It seems a strange kind of rule to bring in.

Would Communist Russia or Communist China have had this kind of rule?

10

It’s been a rule for a long time. In a Frenchy way exceptions are laid out and everything else needs to be declared, but used to be on paper.

1 Like
11

Is there a difference in threshold levels now? I’ve seen two articles, one for the paper version, saying hand-made gifts under 15,000 don’t have to be declared, and a newer one saying there’s no threshold now and all gifts (inc. hand made ones) must be declared (unless it’s a present at a suitable period of the year and within a certain value).

Interestingly they talk about hand made works of art; I’m assuming it’s because certain artwork may be particularly valuable and it would be a way of transferring wealth under the radar… This is a bit of a bugbear though as someone who creates art. It’s the sort of thing I might give as a gift. It’s hardly comparable to giving away a Rodin or Monet. :slight_smile:
I have many fig trees, and if I calculated the value of the figs compared to those in the supermarket, I easily have over 1000 euros of figs each year. I give many of them away. Sometimes the people who receive them give back vegetables, fruits or plants from their garden. Should these technically be declared too? France used to thrive on bartering, especially in the harder up rural areas.

12

You aren’t by any chance using an app that translated “don manual” as a hand made gift?

2 Likes
13

Yes, I may have made a faux pas there. :slight_smile: I should have just read the original French.

1 Like
14

I don’t think the Authorities could give a fig about your trees… geddit :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

15

Yeah, I saw what you did there. :wink:

I’m sure they don’t care. In fact I think bartering is still perfectly legal in France, and has been so for centuries.

1 Like
16

The joys of machine translation. This week we sent out a document in English to be translated into umpteen other languages. It contained a reference to: “customer dude diligence”. All the freelancers who did the translation the old-fashioned way instantly spotted the mistake and realised it should of course be “customer due diligence”. But a Bulgarian freelancer used machine translation that not only failed to spot the error but didn’t even understand “dude”and came up with something in Bulgarian that meant “dud diligence”.

Thank God I’m retiring soon.

3 Likes
17

I had to look this up to be clear because the contribution to the purchase price of a vehicle, the co-ownership of which was supposed to have been noted on the C.G., looks like a gift of cash to me from my co-owner, as a muddle in the reg process resulted in the co-ownership registration not being done.

For anyone else who needs it, this is what ‘Claude’ has to say

In a taxation context, “don manuel” translates to “manual gift” or “gift by hand” in English.

This refers to a hand-to-hand gift - a direct transfer of money or assets from one person to another without any formal deed or notarized document. In French tax law, a “don manuel” is:

- A gift made by physically handing over cash, checks, or transferring assets directly
- Not formalized through a notary (unlike a “donation notariée”)
- Still subject to gift tax rules and reporting requirements in France, even though it’s informal

The key distinction is that while the transfer itself is simple and direct, recipients are still legally required to declare these gifts to tax authorities (typically using Form 2735 in France) if they exceed certain thresholds, to ensure proper gift tax assessment.

In English tax contexts, this would simply be called a “cash gift” or “informal gift”, though the legal implications vary by jurisdiction.

‘France Insider’ doesn’t specify any figures, just “All substantial gifts between individuals (of money, valuables, cars, art, etc.) must now be declared online via the tax authority’s digital portal.”

What does 'substantial’ add up to, now? The sum in question is €7k

18

Apologies if you’ve already done/considered the list of things below,… Have you both documented the transaction ie produced and signed an informal document that notes the dates, amount, purpose of the transfer of money to you, set out full details of the car etc etc? A gift requires intent of giving with no expectation whatsoever of receiving anything in return..The informal document should show that there is no intention to simply gift the €7k..I would also ensure that both of your respective bank statements noted the purpose of the transfer (if done through banks),. Obviously I assume you’re also trying to update the CG to reflect joint ownership. I assume that any emails/texts discussing the deal that would be helpful in corroborating the situation, are retained in case you’re ever asked to evidence the “non gift”.

1 Like
19

The aim is for the tax administration to be able to apply its magical AI autobot to analyze a given person’s financial flows, in the hope of it flagging yet more dodgy dealings, and recovering fines for non compliance. The obligations have existed for a very long time, but now that there aren’t enough human tax inspectors, the administration needs another way of spotting potential wrongdoers. Forcing people to declare online is just another step on the way to a completely automated system, in which the taxpayer will have the burden of proof on them to show that any anomalies flagged by the system are all above board.

1 Like
20

Thanks for that, George

That’s something we have intended to do but not got round to, as yet. :roll_eyes: Must do so now.

It was. I’ll have to check but I remember asking Jorgen to split payments either side of 31 Dec 2024/1st Jan 2025 so that they occurred in different tax years, in case of ‘impots’.

Yes. There’s a trail of emails which start with him volunteering to contribute …

This is where the muddle occurred. The excellent Mark Rimmer got the instruction to add Jorgen to the C.G. He redid the application form to ANTS but they proceeded on the basis of the one he’d already sent in, which had just me on it.

He says that to add Jorgen now would cost the whole of the original charge of €347,xx

If there’s no liability to any tax - I think we may be able to establish no gift involved - I think we won’t need to do that.

Do you think that a joint-ownership doc would need to be witnessed by a notaire?