163 votes against 150. On Friday evening, the deputies narrowly adopted “the tax on unproductive wealth”, creating new dissensions in the hemicycle, particularly within the left. But what is it about?
The unproductive wealth tax is a transformation of the current real estate wealth tax (IFI). The MoDem deputy Jean-Paul Matteï is at the origin of this amendment voted in Parliament.
Non-productive real estate, tangible movable property, etc.
The elected official’s amendment provides in its original wording to include in the tax base “unproductive assets”, such as “non-productive real estate, tangible movable property (precious objects, cars, yachts, planes, furniture, etc.), digital assets, life insurance for funds not allocated to productive investment”, according to his explanatory statement.
On the other hand, productive real estate assets are removed from the IFI’s base, being considered as such properties rented for a period of more than one year and meeting environmental criteria. It also modifies the real estate wealth tax scale, replacing the progressive scale with a single rate of 1%.
One property per tax household excluded from the base
A subamendment from PS deputy Philippe Brun, tabled during the parliamentary break at the start of the evening, and adopted by the deputies, excludes from the base one property per tax household, within the limit of a reduction of one million euros.
The vote for this amendment in the Assembly was made possible by a motley alliance bringing together the RN, the PS, the MoDem and deputies from the centrist Liot group. The rest of the left overwhelmingly voted against.
Friday evening, Philippe Brun welcomed to the press the “reestablishment of the Wealth Tax”, abolished by Emmanuel Macron, in 2027. The Renaissance MP Prisca Thévenot estimated that what had been voted on was “a tax invented by Marine Le Pen herself” and in no case the return of the ISF, “otherwise (…) La France insoumise would have voted for it”.
“We weakened the IFI without even reintegrating the ISF,” regrets Coquerel
Horizons MP Sylvain Berrios, for his part, criticized a measure which will “tax the savings of the French”. “We have weakened the IFI without even reintegrating the ISF” estimated the president of the Finance Committee, the rebel Éric Coquerel.
The entourage of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu stressed that the government was “opposed to the reestablishment of the ISF”.