“Probably between 13,000 and less than 100,000” wealthy households do not pay income tax, according to Éric Lombard

He wants to “understand what’s going on”. According to former Minister of the Economy Éric Lombard, there are in reality many more than 13,000 wealthy households who do not pay income tax. “It’s probably between 13,000 and certainly less than 100,000,” he said on RTL this Friday morning.

The figure of 13,325 taxpayers with real estate assets exceeding 1.3 million euros not paying income tax was confirmed by a note from Bercy sent to the Senate in mid-February. This was revealed by Éric Lombard in January, but was denied by the government.

However, the current Minister of the Economy Roland Lescure affirmed last week that the government was “working” on the phenomenon of tax optimization.

“Fairness is essential”

On RTL this Friday, Éric Lombard indicated that the households concerned practiced “for a significant part” “tax over-optimization”, which is today, according to him, “legal”. “Equity, in our country, is essential (…) I think we need to have a precise analysis” of the situation, he continued. He asked that the work go beyond that of the Senate based on people paying the real estate wealth tax: “but that does not include financial heritage”.

How to react? “Taxation must also be indexed on assets, on financial savings,” replied the former tenant of Bercy. “When I was minister, I proposed a contribution on high wealth and I wanted us not to impose a surcharge on businesses. The decision taken by the government, where I was no longer, was to impose the surtax on companies and not to implement this equity measure,” he regretted.