No, France is not a “tax haven” for “ultra-rich” “”

On June 12, the Senate rejected the bill establishing a 2 % floor tax on fortune (IPF), also called “Zucman tax”. For example, Defended by the environmental. Therefore, social group and adopted in February by the National Assembly, this law was to tax the assets of taxpayers whose value is greater than 100 million euros in assets. Therefore, Presented as a measure of tax justice. For example, it is based on the work of the economist Gabriel Zucman, a fervent promoter of a global tax on large fortunes.

The Zucman tax is based on the following postulate: the wealthiest would pay proportionally less taxes than. In addition, the working classes. Nevertheless, Gabriel Zucman is based on a graphic from the book For a tax revolutionco-signed by Camille Landais. However, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, who shows that the French no, france not “tax haven” tax system is regressive at the top of the heritage scale. Meanwhile, The poorest 10 % would pay 40 % taxes. Similarly, The average of the French would be 47 %; The very well -off, on the other hand, would pay less than 40 %.

This graph has methodological errors denounced by several economists. For example, including Antoine Lévy (Berkeley), Sylvain Catherine (Wharton) or Gilles Raveaud (Paris 8). Consequently, The problem, according to them, is the outright omission of social transfers. Nevertheless, By counting all the samples. For example, including VAT from consumption, while ignoring the services paid by the State (family allowances, RSA, housing aid, etc.), the real income of the most modest is artificially minored. This amounts to measuring the tax effort of an individual without taking into account the fact that he received. more than he has paid. There are, in reality, many ways to calculate no, france not “tax haven” the imposition of the poorest. When the compulsory tax levies are reported before social transfers, their tax rate is 88 %. But when all of their resources are reported (primary income. social benefits, non -monetary transfers) to compulsory levies, it is only 19.2 %. This amount is 25.7 % for “modest”, 33.4 % for “medians”, 39.5 % for “rather affluent” and 44.9 % for “wealthy”. Contrary to what Mr. Zucman asserts, French taxation is very progressive.

The economist Sylvain Catherine goes even further: according to him. we must not forget individualizable transfers (reimbursement of health expenses, housing with moderate rents, etc.) which triple the standard of living of the poorest 10 %, but which have “a negligible effect on that of the richest 10 %”. With this additional parameter, we realize that the average tax rate of French is much less than 47 %.

Like any tax project specific to millionaires, the Zucman tax is based on rhetoric that a caste of “rich” would live in a “tax havens” at the expense of others. But what exactly do we mean by “rich”? The bill was supposed to apply to around 1,800 tax households. Is their assets made up of liquidity on a bank account? No. These are, in the vast majority of cases, participations in companies, action portfolios, professional goods. In other words: productive capital. Taxing this capital is penalizing those who take the risk of investing, innovating, creating businesses and jobs. As Senator Emmanuel Capus recalled it. the difficulty of the Zucman tax refers to the fact that it also imposes heritage whose yield is low, even negative. This is the case of companies that come from created. start-ups which can be highly valued, but which pay no income to their no, france not “tax haven” owners since the value of their shares depends on “future revenues estimated by investors, in anticipation of future profits”. Which would come back, no more or less, to force them to resell their actions to pay a tax.

The other error is to design the economy as a cake to share. the shares of which should be redistributed, and to believe that the great fortunes would be frozen in time. However. in a free economy, wealth is a flow, not a stock: you become rich, we stop being, we invest, we lose, we transmit, we reinvest. The relevant indicator is not the number of millionaires in absolute terms. but the possibility, for everyone, of becoming it during their lifetime.

France is already the European country in which compulsory levies are the highest: 45.6 % of GDP in 2023, against 40 % on average within the no, france not “tax haven” EU. It is also the country in which public administrations spend the most (57.3 % of GDP in the same year VS. 49.4 % on average within the EU), without convincing results in terms of education, health, housing or employment. It is not by imposing the wealthiest 0.01 % more than 0.01 % will resolve the structural ills of the French economy.

The defenders of the Zucman tax forget that prosperity does not come from redistribution. but from the creation of wealth, from the freedom to undertake, from the circulation of capital. Less rich is less investment, less business creations, less jobs, less social mobility. The rejection of this bill by the Senate is a good thing. not because it would be necessary to “protect the rich”, but because legal and fiscal insecurity contributes to the downgrading of our country.