Every spring, the same ritual returns for the owners and managers of French SMEs: gathering the accounting records for the closed financial year, settling a few last-minute entries with the expert-comptable (France's chartered accountant), and filing the liasse fiscale — France's annual tax return package — with the tax administration before the deadline. For a financial year ended 31 December 2025, the electronic filing deadline fell on 20 May 2026: a short window when the books have not been kept up to date throughout the year.
The liasse fiscale is more than an administrative formality. It determines the tax calculation, the company's credibility with its bank, and its composure in the event of a tax audit. At doo.FINANCE, we support SMEs in preparing their liasse and in configuring Odoo so that producing these documents stops being a race against the clock. This article sets out what a liasse actually contains, who prepares what, and how a properly configured ERP changes the picture.
What is the liasse fiscale?
The liasse fiscale is the set of accounting and tax documents that a company files each year with the Direction générale des Finances publiques (DGFiP), France's tax administration, in order to establish its taxable result. It is made up of two building blocks: the déclaration de résultat, the return that reports the result, and a series of standardised tableaux annexes, the supporting schedules.
The déclaration de résultat depends on the tax regime. Companies subject to impôt sur les sociétés (IS), France's corporate income tax, file form 2065-SD. Businesses taxed under impôt sur le revenu (IR) on industrial and commercial profits — bénéfices industriels et commerciaux, BIC — file the 2031-SD. Independent professionals taxed on non-commercial profits, bénéfices non commerciaux, use the 2035 return instead.
The tableaux annexes set out the detail of the balance sheet, the profit and loss account, depreciation, provisions and tax adjustments. This is where most of the expert-comptable's work happens: moving from management accounts to a compliant tax presentation.
Who prepares what: how the roles divide
A persistent misconception holds that the liasse fiscale is the expert-comptable's problem alone. In practice, its quality depends first on the accounting records the company hands over. The more cleanly the books are kept through the year, the more the practice can concentrate on tax expertise — and the less its fee is inflated by clean-up work.
Broadly, the division works as follows:
- On the company side: entering or reconciling customer and supplier invoices, categorising bank movements, substantiating expense claims, tracking fixed assets and providing supporting documents;
- On the expert-comptable side: reviewing the accounts, posting the year-end entries (depreciation, provisions, accruals), making the tax adjustments, preparing the déclaration de résultat and filing the liasse electronically;
- Jointly: deciding on the tax options (carrying forward or offsetting losses, choice of depreciation method) and validating the taxable result before filing.
That boundary is only clear if the data flows without friction. Accounting split across an invoicing tool, a cash-flow spreadsheet and PDF bank statements forces the practice to reconstruct everything — at the cost of delays and transcription errors.
Régime réel simplifié or régime réel normal: which schedules?
The number and nature of the schedules depend on the company's tax regime, which is itself determined by its turnover. Two regimes concern the great majority of SMEs.
The régime réel simplifié
Under the régime réel simplifié, France's simplified actual-profit regime, the liasse comprises the 2065-SD return (under IS) or the 2031-SD (under IR), together with schedules 2033-A to 2033-G: simplified balance sheet, simplified profit and loss account, fixed assets and depreciation, provisions, statement of provisions, and determination of the taxable result. This is the regime of most very small businesses and small SMEs.
The régime réel normal
Under the régime réel normal, the standard actual-profit regime, the same déclaration de résultat is accompanied by schedules 2050 to 2059-G — some fifteen far more detailed schedules: assets and liabilities, the profit and loss account in list form, movements in fixed assets, depreciation, capital gains and losses, provisions, and the extra-accounting adjustments. That level of detail requires rigorous, properly reconciled accounting throughout the year.
Extra-accounting adjustments: the heart of the tax work
The accounting result is never equal to the taxable result. Some recognised expenses are not deductible and must be added back; some recognised income is not taxable and is deducted. A concrete example: an SME that has booked €1,200 of fines and penalties must add them back, because they are not tax-deductible; conversely, a portion of dividends received under the régime mère-fille, France's parent-subsidiary regime, may be deducted. These adjustments appear on schedule 2058-A (régime réel normal) or 2033-B (régime réel simplifié).
It is this adjustment work — invisible in day-to-day bookkeeping — that justifies bringing in a professional, and that explains why a liasse is not a matter of printing the balance sheet. An error here changes the tax due directly.
In every case, a transcription error between the accounts and the tax schedules is expensive: reassessment, penalties, even a challenge to the declared result. Hence the importance of a single, reliable source of data.
The 2026 deadlines not to miss
For a financial year ended 31 December 2025, two dates framed the filing of the liasse fiscale:
- 5 May 2026 — the statutory date, the second working day following 1 May, for a paper filing;
- 20 May 2026 — the effective date for electronic filing, the administration granting an additional fifteen calendar days to companies that file by electronic means.
Electronic filing is not optional: every company under an actual-profit regime must file its liasse electronically, either through EDI-TDFC (échange de données informatisé, the electronic data interchange channel, generally handled by the expert-comptable or a partner) or through EFI mode, online entry. For a financial year that ends during the year rather than on 31 December, the liasse must be filed within three months of the year end, extended by the same fifteen days where filing is electronic.
Late filing exposes the company to surcharges and late-payment interest. Anticipating the deadline rather than being caught by it presupposes accounts already up to date at the year end — precisely what a well-maintained ERP makes possible.