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“Inheritance tax is an ideological and confiscatory tax”

2022-01-24T12:15:59.396Z


FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE - Candidates for the presidential election are heavily involved in the debate on inheritance rights. Olivier Bertaux, tax expert for the Contribuables Associés association, is delighted and is campaigning for a total or partial exemption from transfer duties free of charge.


Olivier Bertaux is a tax expert for the association Contribuables Associés, an Action Tank which campaigns for the control of public spending and the reduction of taxes.

It now has more than 350,000 members.

The eruption of the debate on inheritance rights in the presidential campaign is a divine surprise.

Indeed, while free transfer rights (succession or gift) are increasingly abandoned in other countries (14 OECD States out of 38 have waived them), France continues, on the contrary , its march forward towards ever more rights, as if it were unfair to receive or inherit.

It is therefore time to wake up the spirits.

Appeared during the French Revolution, inheritance rights have always taken on an ideological connotation of an instrument for the abolition of privileges.

But the symbol has become a burden.

From a tax for the principle at the beginning, we have now arrived at a confiscatory tax with a rate of up to 45% for transmissions to children.

In the indirect line, the rights are even 60% on the entire estate.

Such spoliation has all kinds of harmful effects: weakening of families, questioning of property rights, dismantling of the company, demotivation of creators and business leaders...

Olivier Bertaux

Such spoliation has all sorts of harmful effects: weakening of families who can no longer pass on their heritage, questioning of property rights, dismantling of the company when the heir cannot pay the rights, demotivation of creators and business leaders who are overwhelmed by taxes and charges during their lifetime and understand that their hard-earned assets will revert to the state when they die.

That said, the issue of inheritance tax comes into contact with another difficulty faced by our Western societies: the aging of the population which leads to a concentration of money among the oldest people and slows down its circulation. Indeed, the elderly consume and invest less. It's normal and human, but dries up initiatives and sclerosis the economy.

It is therefore necessary to encourage the early transmission of heritage by creating, as exists, for example, in Belgium or Great Britain, a real exemption from donations and by stopping making patches with gadget reductions of a few thousand euros.

This incentive for transmission will of course achieve its full effect in terms of dynamism if the donation is made in full ownership and before a certain age to avoid the windfall of a donation at the point of death.

Read alsoValérie Pécresse: “I want to abolish inheritance tax for 95% of French people”

Thus, even though out of the 15 billion euros brought in by transfer duties free of charge, gift duties already represent only 3 billion, the measure will cost the Treasury all the less as it will find its way there. in new, more dynamic tax revenue from the use of donated sums: consumption and its impact on VAT or investments that create jobs or wealth and therefore generate income or profit tax.

The incentive to donate must lead mechanically to a fall in inheritance transmissions and therefore in the rights that go with it, but here again, less inheritance tax means so much more VAT or income tax. In addition, the State will find its way in terms of cash since it will immediately collect the tax resulting from the use of the sums transmitted, instead of waiting several years for any inheritance tax. It is a question of creating a virtuous circle where property is protected, the family is preserved, the money returns to the economic circuit and taxes are no longer a source of impoverishment.

Inheritance rights will become a kind of sanction for families who have not been able to organize their inheritance or be generous enough to share as soon as possible.

In terms of business transfer, the exemption must [...] be total whether it concerns an inheritance or a gift.

Olivier Bertaux

That said, you cannot give everything away during your lifetime and part of the heritage will therefore always be transmitted by way of succession. This is why a substantial reduction in inheritance tax remains unavoidable, both by the creation of real allowances and by a drastic cap on tax rates, regardless of the family relationship, because why could an individual without children not be able to bequeath his house to his nephew? Especially since a good tax is always a measured tax, especially if it hits goods that have already suffered all the other taxes, VAT or registration fees during their acquisition, income tax used for this acquisition, without forgetting any local taxes, IFI or ISF.

Ultimately, the debate on prohibitive inheritance and gift taxes should be approached from two angles: should they all be abolished in the name of respect for private property or should only gift taxes be abolished in order to encourage early transfer and relaunch the economy by rejuvenating the holding of assets?

It should be noted that in terms of business transfer, the exemption must in all cases be total, whether it is an inheritance or a gift. Indeed, either the business is family-run and its continuity should not be threatened by death, departure or incapacity. Either it is a question of transmitting the company to the employees and those who will take up the challenge must be helped by a total exemption, whether they receive the company by donation or following a death. On condition of course of a total commitment in the company, favored by a simplified exemption mechanism, even if this constraint is also hardened, fair counterpart of the exemption.

If inheritance taxes must at least be reduced when they become an attack on property and the family, gift taxes must in any case be abolished because they slow down the anticipated transmission of heritage and therefore the dynamics of the economy.

Olivier Bertaux

In conclusion, free transfer rights must be fought since they are above all ideological.

And if inheritance taxes must be at least reduced when they become an attack on property and the family, gift taxes must in any case be abolished because they slow down the anticipated transmission of heritage and therefore the dynamic economy.

And in any case, companies must emerge unscathed from a transmission which can only be exempted for this.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-01-24

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