Succession: retirees soon to be deprived of PER tax benefits?

Several MPs demanded that retirement savings plans be subject to income tax upon the death of the subscriber. Ultimately it won’t be the case. However, the government is considering making liquidation of the PER mandatory upon retirement.

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Holders of a retirement savings plan (PER) can blow. While deputies had tabled several amendments to the 2025 draft budget in order to remove the tax advantages of the PER at the time of succession, all these measures were ultimately withdrawn during discussions in the hemicycle. As a reminder, among its many advantages, the retirement savings plan allows you to make payments deductible from taxable income within a certain limit. In return, these sums are taxed at the closure of the plan… unless the subscriber dies before. In the latter case, the capital escapes all taxation. This is what “tax optimization mechanism, made possible by the suspension of taxation of sums paid into a PER”which Charles de Courson, author of the recent report on the taxation of funded retirement savings, intended to eliminate.

The Budget Rapporteur therefore tabled an amendment aimed at ending the tax advantage of PERs upon the death of the subscriber by creating a “tax catch-up of the sums deducted upon entry by integrating them into the basis of the income tax owed by the beneficiaries of the insured-subscriber upon his death”. Two other amendments, carried respectively by the elected representatives of the Democratic and Republican Left group and those of LFI-NFP, asked to subject to tax the “amounts received under this plan in the form of annuity or capital by its beneficiaries and corresponding to payments deducted from the income tax base” when the PER holder dies after the legal retirement age. A final measure, still submitted by the Democratic and Republican Left, finally proposed taxing with a single flat-rate levy (PFU), or at an overall rate of 30%, the sums not taxed at death. So many amendments which were ultimately withdrawn by the deputies during discussions in public session.

“Make liquidation of the PER mandatory upon retirement”

Far from calling into question the tax advantages of the PER, the Minister of Budget and Public Accounts conceded that the retirement savings plan is today diverted from its original objective. “The problem comes from the sums that are paid (to the PER, Editor’s note) after retirement (…). These savings should be used for retirement. The challenge is therefore to make compulsory – which is not exactly provided for in the amendments we are discussing – the liquidation of the PER at the time of retirement, as in Germany.explained Laurent Saint-Martin.

The tenant of Bercy therefore refers the debates to a new dedicated text of law. “Your promise must be followed through on. In a future amending finance law, it will absolutely be necessary to clean up some elements of the PER”concluded Charles de Courson, then agreeing, like the other parliamentary groups, to withdraw his amendments. The future law should partly be inspired by the work of the Budget rapporteur, who recommends setting up a double age limit for PERwith subscription prohibited after age 67 and automatic liquidation at age 70.