It is a report that will not fail to be debated, six months before the presidential election. Following Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promises, the solidarity tax on wealth (ISF) was replaced, in 2018, by a tax on real estate wealth (IFI), at the same time as a ” flat tax ”, a single flat-rate levy of 30% on capital income (interest, dividends, etc.). Almost four years later, a report coordinated by France Stratégie, the assessment and prospective body attached to Matignon, delivers not very encouraging conclusions as to the effectiveness of the famous “trickle” by which, assured the head of the ‘State and its majority, the less taxed amounts would irrigate the economy and thus benefit all French people.
“The observation of major economic variables – growth, investment, household financial investment flows, etc. -, before and after the reforms, is not enough to conclude on the real effect of these reforms. In particular, it will not be possible to estimate by this only means whether the abolition of the ISF allowed a reorientation of the savings of the taxpayers concerned towards the financing of companies ”, indicates the opinion of the evaluation committee of tax reforms, published Thursday, October 14, that The world was able to consult. The study by this working group made up of economists, deputies, representatives of INSEE, the Treasury, Medef and CFDT is a third part, after two reports in 2019 and 2020, which further analyzed the “flat tax” as the ISF.
In addition to having an additional year of hindsight in the assessment (2018-2020), the researchers used new elements: they matched company statistics and household data, and linked shareholders with taxes paid. Enough to study for the first time in detail the effects of the removal of the ISF. One of the arguments often used by opponents of this tax was its harmful role on the dynamics of companies: shareholders of SMEs and mid-size companies (ETI) subject to the ISF would pay (or would be paid) dividends. important, in order to meet them, preventing companies from using that money otherwise. Missed.
“Companies whose shareholders were subject to ISF until 2017 did not invest more then”, explains Fabrice Lenglart, chairman of the evaluation committee. Same flop on business transfers, again deemed to be hindered by the ISF – the sale of a company lost the ISF exemption on professional property, and the manager could thus hesitate to transmit it, to the risk of aging with it. The researchers point out that there has been no inflection in the age of leaders since the abolition of the tax or noticeable effect on governance.
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