« You have a modest income and you want to open a savings account : ‘Account whose purpose is to remunerate the savings constituted by natural or legal persons’ ? The People’s Savings Account (LEP) is for you. It is an investment with an attractive interest rate. Your savings run no risk and you don’t have to pay tax on the interest”. This is how the tax authorities present their Livret d’Epargne Populaire, on the government website.
Thus, the tax authorities recently sent an email to several million taxpayers telling them that they were eligible to open a People’s Savings Account (LEP). No, it’s not a scam via a fraudulent email! Reserved for French people with modest incomes, this savings account has many advantages, including a high rate of return. There was a pub that explains everything to you.
Yes it is the IRS!
SMIC revalued by 2%, increase in the rate of the passbook A and the popular savings book: the measures for the purchasing power come into force today pic.twitter.com/LlNNIDLRRR
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) August 1, 2022
Understanding that you are joining a scam that hides behind a message received in an email is not always easy. Countless phishing emails, sent every day, prey on unsuspecting victims. Many of these messages sound so weird and fake that your inbox sends them straight to spam. However, a lot others are so perfectly written that even the most experimented capitulate.
We receive them very regularly and very regularly we draw your attention to ongoing scams that attempt to extort money or personal information from you by email, telephone or SMS. Be aware that even state services are regularly victims of identity theft. And even the taxman!
Maybe you were so suspicious that you deleted a recently received email too quickly. In this email, one could read “if you receive this email, it means that you are eligible to open a People’s Savings Account (LEP), due to the amount of the reference income of your tax household for the year 2021 ( that appears on your 2022 tax notice)”. No this time, it’s not a scam!
Indeed, the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFiP) is continuing its campaign to promote the Livret d’Epargne Populaire. Thus, it is via an email to the attention of taxpayers that it informs them that they are eligible.
Only 6.9 million French people hold a LEP, out of the 18.6 million taxpayers meeting the eligibility conditions as of December 31, 2021. LEP is however an ideal investmentin this period of galloping inflation. Benefiting from the same characteristics as the A bookletit is much more profitable than this one.
Who can open a popular savings account?
The rates for French regulated savings accounts will increase from February 1:
➖ The popular savings account rate will increase from 1 to 2.2%.
➖ The rate of the booklet A and the sustainable and solidarity development booklet will double, it will go from 0.5 to 1%. pic.twitter.com/ovn6txYkx0— Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) January 14, 2022
Aimed at households with modest incomes, the LEP has regulations. Here are the requirements to open one:
- Being older than 18.
- Opening a popular passbook is reserved for tax households residing in France.
- Justify a reference tax income (registered on l’tax notice 2022 on 2021 income) below a ceiling. This is fixed at €20,297 for a single person€31,137 for a childless couple and €36,557 for a couple with one child.
For information, your LEP will not be closed immediately if the income ceilings are exceeded in 2023. You will no longer be able to benefit from it from the following year, unless your RFR drops below the eligibility threshold.
You can only open one booklet per person, in the limit of two booklets per tax household (one booklet for you and the other for your spouse or your Pacs partner).
What are the advantages ?
LEP has many benefits for beneficiaries. ” Like the Livret A, the LEP is a risk-free savings account, being fully guaranteed by the stateand whose remuneration is totally exempt from taxes and social security contributions, thus specifies the email of the DGFIP. Also, it should be remembered that the money in this investment can be withdrawn at any time and free of charge.
LEP is much more profitable than the booklet A. Son interest rate was raised to 4,6 % on August 1, 2022 due to inflation, compared to 2% for the livret A. The difference is still not negligible since the annual remuneration of a LEP filled to the maximum, i.e. €7,700, thus reaches €354, compared to 200 € annual gain for the booklet A.
If you are one of the recipients of ce mail d’information, don’t miss it! Ask your bank very quickly to open one without delay! And it’s not always that we receive a letter from the tax authorities announcing good news!