Accused of being a “tax on virtues” of parents who have saved your entire life, or of being a “death tax”Inheritance taxes are not very popular with the public. According to an Odoxa survey for the magazine Challenges published on April 25, 84% of French people want their parents to transmit “as much wealth as possible for your children” and 77% consider that this tax is not justified.
A disenchantment confirmed by a 2022 study by OpinionWay to the echoes, which concluded that 81% of French people were against an increase in inheritance taxes. For some, inheritance taxes should simply be abolished, as Sweden did twenty years ago, or at least reduced.
However, although they provoke rejection, inheritance taxes affect a minority of taxpayers. According to INSEE, in 2018, only 14.6% of parents transmitted inheritances exceeding 100,000 euros and were therefore subject to inheritance tax. This low level leads some to say that heredity contributes to inequalities. In France, 60% of wealth comes from inheritances. An estate that is distributed very unequally: while 50% of French people will inherit less than 70,000 euros, the 1% of the richest beneficiaries receive an average of 4.2 million euros net of rights.
“A trend is common to all developed countries”
In a note from the Economic Analysis Council entitled “Rethinking inheritance”, published at the end of 2021, Clément Dherbécourt, Gabrielle Fack, Camille Landais and Stefanie Stantcheva estimated that “If the mass of accumulated wealth increases rapidly, it is not entirely consumed throughout life, but rather a significant part is transmitted to future generations. As a result, inheritance is once again a determining factor in the constitution of wealth: inherited wealth now represents 60% of total wealth, compared to 35% on average in the early 1970s. This trend is common to all developed countries, but. seems particularly strong in France”.
the legacy “it carries with it the risk of a profound alteration of equality of opportunity, the cardinal value of democratic societies and the condition of their possibility of existence in the long term”They judged.
The previous government considered restricting the Dutreil tax relief plan to benefit family business transfers. The NGO Oxfam points out that 80% of French people do not receive any donation during their lifetime and that among those who inherit, nine out of ten receive less than 100,000 euros during their lifetime; “The top 0.1%” of heirs receive an average of 13 million euros and only pay around 10% in inheritance tax. The association warns of the emergence of a minority of super-heirs and estimates that for the current fifty billionaires alone, losses due to existing tax loopholes and exemptions will represent more than 160 billion euros in the next thirty years.
Relief promises
During the 2022 presidential election campaign, candidate Emmanuel Macron declared that he was not “He is not one of those who think that inheritance taxes should be increased every time, on the contrary” and had promised to reduce inheritance tax by increasing the reduction by 50,000 euros for inheritances in a direct line (parents-children), and introducing a reduction of 100,000 euros for inheritances in an indirect line (brothers-sisters, nephews-nieces). , sons-in-law).
A recent report from the Court of Auditors, prepared at the request of the deputy of France Insoumise (LFI), Eric Coquerel, considers it possible to finance a reduction in inheritance costs in mixed families. While others believe that large inheritances should pay more taxes. I am not sure, however, that the Barnier government will decide to reopen this very controversial issue of inheritance taxes.
Are inheritance taxes higher in France than in our neighbors? Should we save the Dutreil device? Should we reform inheritance taxes? Through three round tables that will bring together, in particular, Jean-Paul Mattei (notary, deputy and president of the MoDem group in the National Assembly), Gilles Bonnet (notary associated with the KL Conseil firm), Jean-François Desbuquois (associate lawyer to the firm Fidal), Layla Abdelké Yakoub (responsible for defending tax justice and inequalities at Oxfam France) and Jean-Marc Daniel (economist, professor at the ESCP Business School), the third edition of the Rencontres de la fiscalité will respond to these questions.
The Taxation Meetings, November 5, 2024 in the auditorium of World. Free access upon registration.
Find program details on the site.
This article was prepared within the framework of the Rencontres de la fiscalité, in collaboration with Le Cercle des fiscalistes and with the support of KL Conseil.
