Published on May 23 in Le Figarothe title of the column is explicit: “We want the death of the death tax”, write Eric Ciotti, president of the Les Républicains (LR) party, and François-Xavier Bellamy, head of the right-wing list in the European elections on June 9. In fact, the first handed the pen to the second, whose arguments to defend this initiative are as much economic and political as philosophical. “We have a tax system that slows down the transmissionaccuses the MEP. I believe in transmission, whether of values, culture or goods. »
In his party, the idea is not disruptive, but Eric Ciotti claims his consistency on the subject. “This is one of the themes that allowed me to emerge during the primary for the presidential election in 2021”, admits the former surprise finalist against Valérie Pécresse. At the time, the deputy for Alpes-Maritimes sought to embody a more economically liberal right and took over the concept of “death tax” by the American economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006). After having defended, in the 1960s, the idea that a market economy without inheritance was viable, Friedman subsequently denounced a tax that he considered immoral.
In 2021, candidate Ciotti took up the work of the American economist to defend the idea of eliminating inheritance taxes on assets of less than 5 million euros. Today, he is calling for aligning the inheritance tax system with the best-selling deduction in Europe, namely Italy, or 1 million euros, compared to 100,000 euros currently per heir.
High cost
Inheritance taxes have been reduced or even eliminated in the majority of the thirty-eight OECD countries, partly due to their unpopularity. An argument taken up by Mr. Ciotti. “The left doesn’t understand it, but the French have common sense and say that you cannot have worked a whole life and be taxed again on this heritage”he says.
The argument of unpopularity makes Guillaume Allègre, economist at the French Observatory of Economic Conditions and author of several works on inheritance, smile. “The right is attacking inheritance tax on the grounds that it is an unpopular tax. But she forgets to remind that the ISF [l’impôt de solidarité sur la fortune] was the most popular tax. If we take this argument, we should reinstate the ISF. But this is not really LR’s wish. » Not to mention that, in fact, a large proportion of French people are not affected by inheritance taxes, due to the reductions and exceptions already in force.
You have 54.34% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
