Many MPs called for the inheritance benefits of life insurance to be removed, at least in part. Ultimately, all their proposals were rejected. A new advantage has even been granted to subscribers.
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– Subscribers to a life insurance policy benefit from very advantageous taxation at the time of their inheritance.
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More fear than harm for life insurance policy holders… and their beneficiaries. While the deputies had, during the examination in the Finance Committee of the Budget for 2025, adopted a amendment increasing the inheritance tax on life insurancethey decided otherwise in a public session. The measure, carried by Jean-Paul Mattei, was in fact rejected in the hemicycle on Friday October 25. “A small amendment of tax justice which does not call into question the life insurance system, quite the contrary”nevertheless tried to explain the elected Modem of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques to the national representation. Namely, aligning the inheritance tax of life insurance contractswhen the subscriber has made payments before turning 70, into the general inheritance tax regime. Which would have had the impact of increasing the levy – by 20% after a reduction of 152,000 euros per beneficiary then by 31.25% from 700,000 euros taxable today – to a maximum of 45% beyond of 1,805,677 euros.
Faced with the hostility of the deputies of Ensemble pour la République, the general rapporteur of the Budget Charles de Courson (Liot) and the Minister of the Budget and Public Accounts, Laurent Saint-Martin, Jean-Paul Mattei vainly recalled that the current tax advantage of 152,500 euros was not called into question by his amendment. “It applies to each beneficiary: if we choose four beneficiaries, we can go up to more than 600,000 euros”declared the MP. And clarified that the Modem amendment only aimed to close the tax gap between the levies applied to life insurance contracts and inheritance tax in direct line (for children for example), and only after this reduction of 152,500 euros. But these arguments did not convince the deputies, who voted mainly to reject the measure (103 against, 83 for).
No tougher taxation adopted, quite the contrary
A fate identical to that of the numerous amendments tabled by France Insoumise, the socialists and the ecologists. The latter asked “to harmonize the tax loophole for inheritance tax on life insurance products” by maintaining only one deduction of 30,500 euros for all beneficiaries, “reinstate life insurance to the general transfer tax regime free of charge” or even“Assimilate cash and life insurance contracts invested in units of account to the assets listed in the current real estate wealth tax base (IFI)”.
Finally, the only amendment retained by the deputies is none other than a Help given to life insurance holders and their beneficiaries. More precisely, they adopted a measure proposed by the elected representative of Orne Véronique Louwagie (Republican Right), allowing the subscriber to transmit to each of his beneficiaries in advance, and up to 152,500 euros, the premiums paid on his contract before he turns 70. All this, completely tax-free. Valid for the year 2025 only, this latitude was however voted against the advice of Minister Laurent Saint-Martin. Thus, in the event of recourse to 49-3, it could therefore be deleted from the final text retained by the government.
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