Of course it is more completely the same

Johnny get one day Belgian naturalization Nothing is acquired from the expressed "reservations", in early October, by the Belgian Foreign Office on his record. One thing is certain: a quarter century after its creation, the total blur still reigns on the future of the tax of solidarity on wealth (ISF), maliciously renamed the "incitement to out of France" by detractors. More and more assimilated to a tax on real estate, often qualified of "perverse" ideological tax, "confiscatory" or "stupid" by the tax professionals of all kinds, the device created by François Mitterrand in 1982, repealed by Balladur in 1986, restored and capped by Rocard in 1988, removed by Juppe in 1996, remains a prototype of the incongruities of the French tax policy. Everyone talks about, but nobody really is touch in pre-election period.

"There are more as well as rich in the world." "And the rich are increasingly rich", recently declared the patron of Gucci, Robert Polet. True, and not only in Asia. According to a recent study of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the France is the fifth of the concentration of private wealth, with 260,000 millionaires in dollars, behind the United States (2.9 million), Japan (825 000), United Kingdom (Interamericano) and Germany (330,000). The number of the "super-riches" with a heritage in addition to 20 million euros (approximately 2,000 homes in France in 2005) has increased at an annual rate of 24 since 2000. According to BCG, the number of the French "ultra-riches", exceeding EUR 50 million, heritage is today estimated at 305 homes, to report to the famous "200 families" shareholders of the Bank of France including Edouard Daladier denounced the stranglehold on the national economy in radical Congress in Nantes in 1934.

Of course, it is more completely the same. What became of these 200 shareholders of the Bank of France families who embodied the fortune seventy-two years ago According to the latest survey of the sociologists Michel Pinçon and Monique Pinçon-Charlot, which listens for twenty years the evolution of the elites and the great bourgeoisie in France, there are still a handful: Seillière (heir to the Wendel), Rothschild or David-Weill and Guerlain..., in the latest ranking of national fortunes. This does not mean that the old French dynasties have disappeared so far. They are still there and this: Dassault, Vuitton, Hériard-Dubreuil, Taittinger or Peugeot... In France, "the concentration of heritage is more emphasized than revenues", note the authors. In this regard, even if he ignores the work tool and works of art, Lai is a good barometer to compare the evolution of the gap of income between the French. According to calculations by two sociologists, comparing the wealth of the richest households than the less fortunate households, it gets even a gap "beyond comprehension". "". On average, each of the hundred richest households has a heritage that represents 24,000 times the wealth of each of the 6.600.000 households the less fortunate.

Although it is optically justified, the ISF is not less perceived as "confiscatory." It is especially counterproductive, because it is the first factor of expatriation of the capital. According to some estimates, it would be responsible for the "relocation" of some EUR 100 billion of capital in Belgium or elsewhere since its inception. A report to the 3.6 billion in total revenue of the ISF in 2006. According to the latest figures from the Ministry of the economy, the number of taxpayers subject to the ISF will reach 460.000 people this year (up from 400,000 in 2005) on a total of 34.5 million tax households. In 2007, the product of the wealth solidarity tax should still grow 5.7 to EUR 3.84 billion.

Contrary to a widespread idea, the ISF is not a French exception. There are also in other European countries such as the Spain or the Sweden, but its rate is smaller and it remains subject to a CAP system where the sum of the income tax and wealth tax cannot exceed 60 of taxable income. In France, we know his major failure: lack of updating of rates, it "strike" more "contractor dynamic of 40 years who has sold his company" or "widow of colonel" than large established fortunes which were reinvested in the professional tool. Subject to its proper functioning, "tax shield" designed by Thierry Breton, operational on 1 January 2007, should contribute to remove part of his perverse effects by establishing a right to return of the taxes direct to the portion which exceeds 60 of income.

"A single reform is justified: delete this tax unfair and destructive", argued recently the Liberal Economist Pascal Salin. For others, true liberal reform does not lie in the removal of the ISF, but in the updating of its scale and division by ten of its tax rates, or even the Lai of principal residence exemption. "The rupture, it would be to have the courage and energy to our flat tax system", writes Nicolas Sarkozy in his book "Testimony" (1) referring to the consolidation of the direct taxation within a single tax on income, "with an additional slice corresponding to the solidarity on fortune tax." It would be to remove it without saying something. But this transfer of loads is considered hardly passable by tax practitioners. "It can not do both," said, moreover, the political adviser of the UMP, François Fillon, to the "echoes", in September 2006, arguing the priority of the reform of inheritance. Mean that the reform of the ISF, "balzacien" as tax the qualified himself Michel Charasse, still remains a taboo subject.