In her editorial this Friday, January 7, Agnès Verdier-Moliné, director of the IFRAP foundation, discusses the policy of inheritance taxes in France.
We are told that we are a country of heirs, that we should increase taxation on donations and inheritances? At the start of 2022 after whatever it costs, we arrive at the meeting point between unbridled public spending and the very French inclinations to tax everything that still moves a little.
This is shown by the latest note from the CAE, an organization attached to the Prime Minister, which quite simply proposes to almost double the tax burden on donations and inheritances by thinking no longer by inheritance but by individual: each of us would have throughout its life – a sort of unimposed maximum gauge… with the reduction, or even the elimination of the main exemptions or exemptions: life insurance, property dismemberment regime and Dutreil exemptions at 75% for the transfer of businesses.
France is, in terms of GDP, the country which taxes donations and inheritances the most, with 0.7% of GDP when the European average is 0.2% (same for the United States). If France wanted to be in the European average, on the contrary, it would be necessary to lower the tax burden on donations and inheritances from 7 to 8 billion… it would therefore be better to take inspiration from what our neighbors are doing… by taxing less.
Sweden and Luxembourg have set inheritance tax to 0% for all to keep their businesses and their talents … Germany allows a business to be transferred tax free if the new generation agrees to keep the business.
Italy has the largest allowance in the European Union at over € 1million per share. In Ireland, there is a 90% abatement for the transfer of a business in addition to that of each child before taxation at 33% …. and so on. Instead of these common sense choices adopted by our European neighbors, France continues to tax too much the transfer of businesses. The cost to transfer a large SME or an ETI amounts on average between 10 and 17% of the value of the company while the European average is of 5%.
While so much savings were stored during the crisis and one wonders how to circulate in the economy the slightly less than 200 billion saved by households … It’s very simple: we should remove the cap from the tax on donations. for two years that would have a huge impact. And tax business transfers to zero as well, even if it means imposing a retention obligation on the buyer for 6 to 10 years!
The question is: do we want to keep our businesses and our assets and our jobs or do ideology? Insubordinate France proposes to despoil French families from 12 million euros of inheritance. Who can believe that the great entrepreneurs of France and their families will stay in France? This is not serious ! If the state robbed these families, it would not create more jobs and added value with this money. Who has proven that taxing inheritance to death increases the wealth created in a country? Anybody !