Bartolomé Lenoir is president of La chaise française. He is also director and spokesperson for the Contribuables associés association. Founded in 1990, its purpose is to defend French taxpayers.
FIGAROVOX.- According to the Parisian, Emmanuel Macron wants to allow cohabiting couples to pay less tax by pooling their declaration, which is currently reserved for married or PACS couples. How do you view this proposal?
Bartolome LENOIR.-
In principle, a tax reduction announcement is always good to take!
Nevertheless, it is essential to remember that a lasting and real reduction in taxes must be the corollary of a reduction in public spending.
Emmanuel Macron must tell us the expense he wants to reduce to improve the taxation of common-law couples.
In reality, we can legitimately ask ourselves if he intends to finance this tax reform by raising taxes and duties which will weigh on others ... and particularly married couples?
It seems to me then that the French should consider this proposal as a reform of society rather than a tax reform.
France needs a tax cut to regain purchasing power, there are many other taxes to lower for everyone.
We do not upset with a snap of the fingers a tax which brings in 70 billion euros per year and constitutes the civil pivot of our taxation.
Or else it's irresponsible.
From an economic point of view, can this measure make it possible to increase the purchasing power of households? What about consumption?
As I said, it will indeed improve the lot of free-union couples, but what about single and married French people who will see taxes increase to finance this measure?
Your question addresses the purchasing power of households and not of part of households... In this respect, the general impact of such a reform is non-existent because others will pay the price and unfortunately it is often the most popular classes who suffer from it.
Emmanuel Macron could also decide to resort to debt.
Future generations to suffer the consequences.
By weakening the home, we risk destroying it.
We will then gain in simplicity and efficiency but certainly not in household protection.
Bartolome Lenoir
On the societal level, does it not risk burying the marriage? Many couples united partly for tax reasons.
This is the essential point of this announcement.
The measure envisaged is less fiscal than societal.
It is a question of trivializing even more the notion of couple and dissolving the very idea of marriage.
That said, it is probably less marriage than the PACS that will suffer the consequences.
Indeed, a couple who wants to sign a contract just for the tax advantage will sign above all a PACS which offers all the tax relief without the disadvantages in terms of commitments and civil constraints.
Since the PACS, it has become rare to get married for tax reasons.
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Be that as it may, equating married couples and cohabitants for tax purposes opens the door to a lot of uncertainties.
Indeed, marriage and the PACS are indisputable because of the very existence of an official act.
Who will prove cohabitation?
How will it be if several couples form and break up in the same year?
The calculation of the already complex family quotient will turn into a gas plant.
For the record, the common taxation of cohabitants already exists for the IFI, which is obviously much less interesting for taxpayers since the tax threshold is then at €1,300,000 for the two estates combined and not for each .
The tax authorities even had to settle the courteous question of the cohabiting partner who was also married.
It was then decided,
in a rather reactionary way, let's face it, that marriage prevailed over cohabitation and that the cohabitant therefore had to make joint taxation with his legal spouse in the absence of a common bed.
What about income tax?
This is the mystery.
Will the controller turn into a morality investigator?
Not to mention that the question will also arise in terms of inheritance rights, since the cohabitant pays 60% of rights where the legal spouse or PACS partner is exempt.
Will the controller turn into a morality investigator?
Not to mention that the question will also arise in terms of inheritance rights, since the cohabitant pays 60% of rights where the legal spouse or PACS partner is exempt.
Will the controller turn into a morality investigator?
Not to mention that the question will also arise in terms of inheritance rights, since the cohabitant pays 60% of rights where the legal spouse or PACS partner is exempt.
If the common taxation of cohabitants does not therefore mean the death of the marriage for those who really want to commit and protect their spouse, it is certain on the other hand that it is a further step towards an ever more individual taxation and less and less less per household.
In other words, by dint of weakening the home, there is a risk of destroying it and arriving at the opposite result to that announced: a definitively individual taxation with the disappearance of the tax home and the family quotient.
We will then gain in simplicity and efficiency but certainly not in household protection.