Paris (AFP)
Getting married or pacifying is not always tax-efficient, reveals a study by INSEE published Tuesday, which points out that 2.5 million couples, or 9% of households, would pay less tax if lived in common-law.
The French system of joint taxation of married or unmarried couples "makes a large majority of winners": it allows 7.1 million households (25%), mainly those whose members have unequal incomes, to pay less 'income tax. Of these, 1.7 million couples "become tax-free with maritalization".
"The share of winning households increases with the standard of living", also points the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies in its annual edition "France, social portrait".
But conversely, 2.5 million households are losers (9% of households), "mainly because of the tax mechanism of the haircut, but also the non-conjugalisation of certain ceilings of credits and tax cuts" , details INSEE.
These "losers", who are concentrated among the households "at the median or rather well-off standards of living", have no choice, since the joint taxation is obligatory in the case of a married or pacsé couple. Such a rule is rare in Europe, where most countries apply a "separate total taxation or taking into account spouses' income in a different form, via a tax credit or a tax allowance".
Finally, there are 12% of households that do not lose or earn anything, tax wise, to be married or pacsés. Either because they have equivalent income, or because they are in any case tax-free, marriage or not.
The majority of French households (54%) are, in any case, neither married nor pacsed. Among them are single people, single-parent families and common-law couples with or without children.
© 2019 AFP