Paris (AFP)
The economist Esther Duflo, 2019 Nobel Prize winner in economics, declared herself in favor on Tuesday of the re-establishment of the wealth tax in France, a measure which she considers "reasonable" to tax income from wealth "in the same way as wages. ".
"My opinion on the ISF is that it should never have been abolished. Today, therefore, I think it should be restored," said professor on RTL the prestigious Massachusetts Institute. of Technology (MIT).
"The wealth tax is a reasonable tax, not at all extreme or radical", assured the author, with her husband Abhijit Banerjee, of the book "Useful economy for difficult times", published this spring by Editions du Seuil .
According to Ms. Duflo, income from the great wealth is effectively "not taxed like income from wages".
"We must redistribute towards the lowest incomes," explained the Nobel Prize winner, who notably advocated that short-time working - a measure taken by the French government to cushion the shock of the consequences of the Covid-19 health crisis - "either much more compensated for the poorest than for the richest ".
In recent weeks, the Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, has repeatedly opposed the reinstatement of the wealth tax (ISF), removed in 2018 by the government.
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