France to push ahead with cuts to wealth tax

French president Emmanuel Macron has promised the government will press ahead with promised tax cuts overruling earlier suggestions by prime minister Edouard Phillippe that key campaign policies would be postponed until 2019 as France struggles to contain its public deficit.

France to push ahead with cuts to wealth tax

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According to Reuters, Macron insisted at a meeting on Sunday that the state will move forward with plans to rein in France’s wealth tax, which currently imposes a 0.5% starting levy on assets over €900,000 (£762,000, $990,000), increasing gradually to a top rate of 1.5% to anything over €10m.

Under the new rules, any non-property related wealth would be exempt from the tax.

France is also looking to scrap local property taxes for 80% of households, which will be introduced in 2018, a finance ministry source told the news agency.

It comes just days after prime minister Edouard Phillippe announced that the government will have to delay planned tax cuts until 2019 due to the poor state of the country’s finances.

France’s public spending watchdog recently warned that deficit risked exceeding the EU limit of 3% of gross domestic product this year.

Last week, the Cour des Comptes said the deficit target of 2.8% of gross domestic product set by the previous socialist government was now “out of reach”, predicting a deficit of 3.2% in 2017, unless the government found €4bn in new savings this year.

 

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