Guest of the BFM Business morning show, the professor of tax policy at HEC and former director of taxation at the OECD, returned to the main measures in this area of the New Popular Front and the National Rally.
The tax proposals of the New Popular Front and the National Rally have no guarantee of success. This is the warning issued by Pascal Saint-Amans on the set of Good Morning Business this Thursday, June 27.
The professor of tax policy at HEC notably mentioned the measure carried by the New Popular Front for a return from 5 to 14 brackets in the income tax scale. “If we take a step back from programs which only involve those who watch them, better taxing capital is a global movement that we find almost everywhere, because there has been the end of banking secrecy, we can tax capital better and there is less competition,” notes the specialist.
On the other hand, the former director of the OECD Center for Tax Policy and Administration warns of the level of marginal rates which could be “extremely high”, knowing that a tax on wealth is also planned. “In an open economy, we cannot massacre our own taxpayers,” he insists.
“I imagine there is labor income, but when we look at the economic data, we see that it is the owners of capital who have the greatest income.”
“VAT cuts only benefit those who sell”
Pascal Saint-Amans is also skeptical about the VAT cuts promised by the National Rally, first on fuel and energy prices then “on a hundred essential products” in the event of high inflation.
“It must be said that VAT reductions only benefit those who sell, not those who buy, deplores the professor of tax policy at HEC. If I lower VAT, it is not strongly passed on by the distributors of oil for example. To illustrate his criticism, he cites the example of restaurateurs who did not pass on the reduction in VAT on the prices of their menus a few years ago.
Furthermore, the expert recalls that VAT cuts are extremely costly. According to the Montaigne Institute, a liberal think tank, the cost of a VAT reduction from 20 to 5.5% on energy, fuel, fuel oil, gas and electricity would amount to more than 11 billion per year.
