The ax has fallen. While the fall of François Bayrou could give taxpayers hope for a return to the white year and the freezing of the income tax scaleit will not happen. The finance bill (PLF) for 2026 presented this Tuesday, October 14, and which Capital was able to consult, provides “a stabilization of the income tax and CSG scale”. As announced, therefore, on July 15 by François Bayrou, the 2026 budget will not revalue the entry thresholds in the different marginal tax brackets (TMI) up to inflation excluding tobacco expected for 2025.
A hard blow for the approximately 18 million tax households who pay income tax… but also for those who were exempt and who could enter the scale next year. Because as a reminder, the indexation of the scale brackets (0%, 11%, 30%, 41% and 45%) on inflation – which should land at 1.1% in 2025 according to the PLF -, provided for each year with rare exceptions in the finance bill, aims to protect the purchasing power of the French. With a freeze in the scale, the State intends to make 1.9 billion euros in savings. A “gain” that taxpayers will pay a high price for.
All taxpayers will lose
Because with a frozen 2026 income tax scale (applied to 2025 income), all taxpayers who saw their income increase this year will lose out, just like those whose resources have stagnated. To understand it, here is 2025 scale in force on income received in 2024:
With an income of 40,000 euros in 2024, a single person had to pay 3,965 euros in tax. If his income has not increased this year, the tax bill will be the same with a frozen scale. On the other hand, if they followed inflation (+1.1%) in 2025, to increase to 40,440 euros, their income tax will appear at 4,084 euros, or 119 euros more.
In the absence of a freeze, and therefore with a revaluation of 1.1%, the tax scale on income received in 2025 would be as follows:
- 0% between 0 and 11,623 euros
- 11% from 11,623 to 29,637 euros
- 30% from 29,637 to 84,745 euros
- 41% from 84,745 to 182,277 euros
- 45% above 182,277 euros
With this same level of income of 40,000 euros in 2025 and an increased scale, our single person’s tax would be limited to 3,890 euros. That is, 75 euros less than the tax on his income for 2024. If his income followed inflation (+1.1%), he would then have paid 4,009 euros in tax with an upgraded scale, or 75 euros less than with a frozen scale.
