Emmanuel Macron wants to move quickly, and he’s right.
Experience shows that after gaining legitimacy at the polls, previous five-year and seven-year terms quickly became paralyzed. Thus, the new president has not hesitated to simultaneously launch politically risky initiatives such as the “moralization of public life,” the reform of the Labor Code, and now a restructuring — if not an upheaval — of the Wealth Tax (ISF).
All these intentions are commendable. They meet, in principle, the expectations of the French people who demand change here and now.
By addressing the wealth tax, the government intends to send a strong signal: that of entering a modern 21st-century economy. With money that would be invested in the productive apparatus, in the real economy, rather than being leisurely directed towards savings accounts, life insurance, and real estate, traditional and reassuring havens for savers.
In our old country, the gamble is not without risks. The truly left-wing left, entrenched in its reflexes, obviously cannot adhere to this very liberal vision: one can already hear Mélenchon choking over “the tax gifts given to the rich.” The government will also have to convince the moderate left, the center, and the fragmented right: clearly, this will not be an easy task.
The other day, on France 2 news, a detailed illustration of the consequences of the reform as envisioned must have surprised more than a few: it was calmly explained, using a very specific case, that a tax household would see its ISF decrease from 195,000 to… 6,900 euros due to the structure of its capital being based not on real estate but on the stock market.
I don’t know many people who pay an ISF of 195,000 euros — personally, I wouldn’t mind… — but I can already imagine the damage this type of announcement can cause in public opinion.
We risk moving from a euro-injection engine to a social-explosion one.
Even if the demonstration on TV is financially “true,” this example is necessarily a marginal case, non-representative of the taxpayers subject to the ISF. This type of example — oh so spectacular — risks fueling rejection all the more since the French are aware that redistribution is poorly functioning. All indicators show that the gap is widening between the rich and the poor.
There are, in this, budding dangers for social stability.
Macron’s promise — to make those who pay the ISF today invest in the economy — will be as hard to explain as to… achieve.
Jean-Miche Chevalier, Les Petites Affiches
