The minimum tax for high incomes will apply in 2025, promises François Bayrou

In a letter sent this Thursday, January 16 to the leaders of the Socialist Party, the Prime Minister assured that the differential contribution on high incomes would be present in the 2025 Budget.

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The income of the richest French people could finally be put to use this year. Two days after suggesting that the differential contribution on high incomes (CDHR) would be removed from the debates to make way for a “anti-optimization tax for high net worth”François Bayrou assured this Thursday, January 16, in a letter addressed to the presidents of the parliamentary groups of the Socialist Party, that the CDHR would be retained in the finance bill (PLF) for 2025. A few hours before theexamination of the motion of censure targeting his government, the Prime Minister promised “maintaining the differential contribution on high incomes pending the adoption of a new lasting system to combat unfair tax optimization which will be done at the latest in the PLF 2026, the expected return of which will be the same order”.

It is therefore high incomes who will be targeted by a surcharge in 2025, aimed at preventing them from optimizing their taxation too much, before a mechanism for taxing the highest assets takes over in 2026. As a reminder, the project of differential contribution on high incomesintroduced by the government of Michel Barnier in the 2025 Budget left in abeyance after its censorship on December 4, plans to establish a minimum tax rate of 20% for taxpayers whose reference tax income (RFR) exceeds 250 000 euros for a single person and 500,000 euros for a couple. Let the same perimeter as the exceptional contribution on high incomes (CEHR), a taxation of 3% or 4%.

A flat tax of 37.2% in 2025 for the richest?

If this contribution, which would exclusively affect the income of around 25,000 taxpayers in 2025 and would bring in 2 billion euros in additional tax revenue, is adopted within the framework of the PLF 2025, it would also have the consequence of increasing the tax rate. a tax well known to the wealthiest taxpayers. Namely the flat taxor single flat-rate levy (PFU), whose overall rate of 30% includes 17.2% social security contributions and 12.8% flat-rate tax. A drain that applies to income from numerous investments (life insurance, dividends, interest on savings accounts, etc.). For a tax household whose main income comes from such investments, and which therefore pays a tax rate limited to 12.8%, to which must be added 3% or 4% of CEHR, its tax rate would rise by 4.2% or 3.2% to reach 20%. All taxes included, the flat tax rate for these households would thus peak at 37.2%.