For the past four years, the Directorate General of Public Finances (DGFiP) has been actively transforming through several major reforms and projects to better assist users with their tax-related processes and obligations: from withholding at the source, automatic income declaration, to innovative online services like 'Manage my real estate' and online donation declaration. These new measures have significantly contributed to making 'taxes fit into your life'.
Life is full of changes, whether they're happy moments or unexpected events. Thanks to withholding at the source, you can adjust your taxes to closely match your changing circumstances.
Indeed, while withholding at the source varies automatically with your income, the rate remains unchanged until the next year's declaration. That's why it's possible to request a recalculation to align with new life circumstances: an additional half-part for the arrival of a child, joint declaration for marriages or civil partnerships, or adjusting your rate in cases of promotions, retirement, losing a client (for sole proprietors), or unemployment...
The goal? To avoid advancing funds and minimize any potential balance that would be refunded to taxpayers (or due in case of increased income, divorce, or a dependent child leaving) in the following year.
For instance, just under 245,000 births were declared in real-time using the 'Manage my withholding at the source' service in 2021, while there were 738,000 births. Similar observations were made for marriages, civil partnerships, divorces, etc.
Public Finances have decided to launch an advertising campaign, both in real-time and as a 'continuing thread' throughout the year. This invites each taxpayer to make it a habit of spontaneously reporting changes in their situation as they occur, ensuring the most accurate monthly withholding rate.
Based on the pace of taxpayers' lives, the campaign launched today will run from June 2022 to February 2023 across four advertising spots broadcasted on television, radio, the web, and social media. The campaign will also involve poster advertising. It revolves around major life events requiring a change in situation declaration (June: marriage / September: birth & civil partnerships / November: retirement / February: salary promotion), the 'Taxes 2022' campaign was designed as a service-oriented tool to remind everyone of the benefits of such declarations.
With a positive and deliberately non-prescriptive tone, this close-to-home campaign illustrates everyday life scenes representing the variety of reactions during major announcements. The creative idea developed by the Insign agency emphasizes announcing these changes to those around you (family, friends, colleagues, etc.) while cleverly reminding the real benefits of sharing this information with the tax authorities.
'We have deliberately designed this campaign, joyful and creative, from a service-oriented perspective to help users better understand their tax processes and develop habits,' declares Frédéric Genre, Associate Director at Insign.
From Bercy's perspective:
'In a challenging or uncertain economic context (health crisis, inflation...), being able to adjust your withholding rate and tax amount monthly according to your real-time situation is a genuine benefit for household budget management. It was essential to (re)make this known so that taxpayers fully embrace this new possibility now offered by the withholding reform. That's the goal of this campaign.'
Entrusted to the production studio Seize-Dix-Huit Images, the campaign, creatively led by Franck Luminier, was directed by Rémy Fournigault. The music is composed by Poumtchak.
