France: the excesses of the tax system
The implementation of the withholding tax on income will take time and meets with “little enthusiasm”, according to a new report on the issue submitted Tuesday to the Minister of the Economy Thierry Breton, for whom this reform nevertheless goes “in the direction of history”. A major promoter of withholding tax, which consists of having household taxes collected in real time directly by companies or pension funds, and no longer by the tax administration, Thierry Breton stressed on Tuesday that he was an “element of economic modernity” and considered its implementation possible from the beginning of 2009 (AFP, 03/27/2007)
Is it true ingenuity, cynicism towards citizens, or revelations which unconsciously escape their author? Still, withholding tax, far from being a historical and modern development, is a retrograde, anti-democratic and abusive concept. As the children say, it is “he who says who is”: by referring to historical evolution, Mr. Breton claims to be that from which he is furthest away.
To be democratic, taxes must be transparent, direct, fully controllable, declarative and flat-rate.
Transparent first: this supposes that it is direct, therefore perceived by citizens and not included surreptitiously in their consumption; that it is transparent, therefore that it is declarative and can be calculated by them. That it is paid by them and not taken with the complicity of third parties such as employers or traders, whose role it is not and who are not paid to do this.
Lump sum then: the tax cannot accommodate the manipulations of the State, which takes a little less here and a little more there, depending on its political whims and what it believes is good for the social body, for the classes he defends, or for himself. Even more blatant is the abuse contained in the incentives introduced by the Belgian State: the earlier you pay, the less you pay. However, tax is a contribution to collective functioning, and not a commercial variable that needs to be manipulated.
Finally, the tax must be intended for public financing, and not for state financing: it is a contribution to the functioning of the community, and not the State alone. The State can collect it, but must redistribute part of public funding to organized civil society within the framework of clear rules. Its “lifestyle” (i.e. its operating costs) must not be excessive nor, a fortiori, absorb almost all of the tax levies.
Finally, the level of tax must not be excessive in amount. Today we are talking about a shield capping compulsory deductions at 50% of income as if it were a protection… If absurd policies had not created an unprecedented social crisis, if the canker of a State without counterweights had not interfered in all spheres of social life, the gulf in public finances would be much more easily filled.
We advocate a radical reform of the system of financing public life which accompanies the progressive regression of the role of the State and the parallel growth of that of organized civil society.
