The Senate Finance Committee today released its report with a punchy title: Black box of high wealth: why does France no longer know who its rich are? His observation is harsh. The State no longer has a consolidated vision of the wealth of the wealthiest households, particularly since the abolition of the ISF in 2017 and the abandonment of the detailed exploitation of inheritance data. Since then, the debate on the taxation of the richest has taken place in a statistical fog.
At the origin of this work, a controversy launched in early 2026 on these “thousands of very wealthy people paying no income tax” by former Minister of the Economy Éric Lombard. Senators Claude Raynal and Jean-François Husson confirm the phenomenon, while calling for going beyond the caricatures. Their line is, before taxing more, to first know the ins and outs. The report thus documents the administration blind spotsthe optimization mechanisms used by the wealthiest, and formula eleven recommendations.
13,324 IFI households without income tax
First strong lesson: in 2024, 13,324 households subject to the IFI have had a zero or negative income tax (excluding non-residents and deaths during the year). For the rapporteurs, this figure does not in itself prove massive fraud, but it highlights a lasting phenomenon. “ Our report starts from a now established fact », underlines Jean-François Husson. The report emphasizes the fact that some of these households have really low incomebut another reduces its taxable income via deficits, holding companies, furnished rentals or capitalization of gains.
A “black box” since the end of the ISF
The report specifies that France has lost its measuring instruments. “A real black box has closed over the last twenty years on household assets”alerts Claude Raynal. The investigation Life history and heritage of INSEE is considered useful but insufficient, because 69% of financial assets is not captured there. Inheritance data has not been carefully used since 2010. For the Senate, without robust data on inheritance, financial assets or large fortunes, it is impossible to correctly calibrate the tax.
The Senate is pushing eleven avenues to better see and tax
The senators propose a overhaul of statistical and tax tools. Among the measures, they recommend relaunching a regular survey on high assetsto accelerate the digitization inheritance declarations, to extend the single tax form to financial assets and to create a “economic income” indicator wider than the reference tax income. “ Before deciding whether and how to tax more, we must first know what we are talking about », summarizes Claude Raynal. Implicitly, the report also relaunches the debate on a future contribution on high assets, without making a definitive decision.
