The economist Gabriel Zucman, at the origin of a proposal of a tax on Ultra Rico dismissed on Friday by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, warned Wednesday against the “alternative methods” of the richest taxes, much less effective according to him.
Even without a government, Sébastien Lecornu is preparing the budget of the year 2026, on which the first orientations are taking shape, the prime minister has remarkably rejected on Friday the return of a tax on wealth, as well as the tax at least 2% on the equity greater than 100 million euros, the “Zucman tax”, which the left requires his wishes.
Raising the “flat tax”
Among the planned options, on the other hand, a recovery of the unique global sum (“fixed tax”) on capital income is cited in the press, currently 30%, a renovation of the corporate surcharge applied to the largest companies in 2025, officially for a single year and a Dutreil Pact plane in family businesses transmissions.
“The main lesson that the scientific community has extracted from the analysis of great fortunes, as it has historically existed in several countries, and in a more general way of senior heritage taxes, is that the creativity of interested persons and the people who advise them should not be underestimated when it comes to escape taxes,” said Gabriel Zucman.
“The risk is that we will end other forms of tax optimization. And that is why the most effective mechanism is the minimum fiscal system, the floor rate,” he continued, recalling that with his proposal, “at the end of the purposes, he will have to pay an incompressible minimum.”
The economist, on the other hand, refused to comment on the recent refusal of the prime minister not to retain his tax proposal in the following budget, and hit that minimum taxes without exemptions was essential.
“As soon as you start creating deductions, cover mechanisms, etc., you release the optimization machine,” he said, judging that “it is the exemptions that have undermined the solidarity tax in fortune.”
Source: BFM TV
