Discussions around the 2025 finance bill promise heated debates in the National Assembly, with the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, wishing on the one hand to make savings and on the other to increase existing taxes. Elsewhere in the world, untapped solutions in France nevertheless bring in billions in tax revenue. 20 Minutes tells you the sectors in which there is money to be made.
Drug money
France has five million regular or occasional cannabis smokers, directly or indirectly supports 240,000 people, brings traffickers a significant share of a global turnover of between three and six billion euros per year and has cost, in 2019, 570 million euros of public money.
Since the legalization of the use and sale of recreational cannabis in Canada in 2018, tax revenues exceed $15 billion between 2018 and 2022. Not to mention “a surplus of $43.5 billion for GDP” of the country between 2018 and 2021 and the approximately 151,000 jobs created.
In Colorado, the first American state to legalize recreational cannabis in 2014, the sector’s turnover represents 1.2 billion dollars annually, including nearly 300 million in tax revenue for the state, according to the Analysis Council economic.
Gambling money
Games of chance and money already bring in quite a bit of money for the French state, largely thanks to Française des jeux (FDJ), which has paid more than 3 billion euros into the coffers in taxes and dividends. of the Public Treasury in 2021. But we can do better, for example by capturing the pharaonic windfall, between 750 million and 1.5 billion euros, represented by the illegal offer of online games, according to a report from the National Gaming Authority of Paris (ANP) dating from December 2023.
In Belgium, the opening of the online casino market allowed the kingdom to generate taxes on nearly 300 million euros in turnover in 2020 alone. Spain, with the liberalization of the casino market , garnered 407 million euros in gross gaming revenue in 2021 for this branch alone. And the latter country has also introduced a tax on gaming winnings above 300 euros.
Money from prostitution
While it is illegal in France to use the services of a prostitute, prostitution itself is not prohibited, to the point that income from this activity is taxable as non-commercial profits (BNC ). However, this activity takes place largely under the radar, generally in the form of exploitation of some 37,000 prostitutes who generate 3.2 billion in turnover, according to a Nid study.
In 2010, in the Netherlands, to stem the abuses linked to pimping, the government made it a regulated profession, subject to obtaining a work permit proving their “autonomy”. The idea was also to bring back part of the money generated by prostitution into the state coffers, by introducing a tax of 19% on the price of a pass and an income tax of 33% to 52 % according to the annual amounts declared. The social effect, however, was not as expected since, according to the Scelles foundation, 60 to 80% of prostitutes are migrants operating on an underground market, a large part of which is still in the hands of organized crime.
Other questionable leads
In the “not very ethical measures” series, the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada estimated, in a report dating from 2020, that the expansion of medical assistance in dying “to people whose death is not reasonably planned in the short term,” would affect 1,164 people and save nearly $150 million in health costs.
In one article, 20 Minutes mentions, today, moreover, a tax in force in Germany aimed at making dog owners cough up change. An initiative which, although it could bring in big profits, is not seen as very socially equitable and would be particularly unpopular.
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