Paris (AFP)
Two thirds of dividends in France were distributed in 2018 to 0.1% of tax households and a third to 0.01% of them, according to a report by France Strategy on capital tax reforms published Thursday.
In 2017, before the introduction of the "flat tax", the single flat-rate levy (PFU) on capital income, only half of the dividends were concentrated on 0.1% of tax households and a "small quarter" on 0.01% of them, according to this report.
Dividends paid have since increased sharply, from 14 billion euros in 2017 to 23 billion in 2018, indicates France Stratégie, an organization which reports to the Prime Minister and whose evaluation committee has been tasked with monitoring the reforms of the capital taxation in France.
In its second report, this committee highlights an opposite effect of the PFU compared to that of the "barémisation" implemented in 2013 which, by establishing a progressive taxation of dividends, had reduced the distribution of the latter. from 22 billion in 2012 to 13 billion in 2013.
"Several elements clearly suggest that the sharp increase in dividends received by households in 2018 is in part caused by the reform of the PFU, even if this causal effect is not yet scientifically and formally established", indicates France Strategy.
Moreover, the report "does not observe any significant effect" of the flat tax "on the investment of these companies", just as no significant effect had been established on investment after the 2013 reform.
This reform wanted by Emmanuel Macron, like the transformation, also in 2018, of the wealth tax (ISF) into IFI (tax on real estate wealth), had the stated aim of stimulating activity by encouraging taxpayers easier to invest in the economy.
© 2020 AFP