French Senate rejects “Zucman tax” on wealth for ultra-high-net-worth individuals

It passed through the National Assembly (the lower house) with votes from the left after being proposed by the Ecologists (Les Ecologistes, formerly EELV, the main French green party), back in February.

At 188 votes against, 129 for, the centre-to-right Senate rejected it. The senate majority is the LR group from which the Senate president, Larcher, is from. The big majority groups are the centre-to-centre-right UC, LIRT and RDPI, across which (the former two include members of Horizons, UDI and the old Radical Party, and RDPI is the group of LREM/Renaissance members).

The proposal would've instituted a 2% wealth tax on people with net worth over 200M€. It is named after Gabriel Zucman (some here probably know of him), head of the Observatoire européen de la fiscalité, who made the proposal last year at the G20 meeting hoping to make it a global tax. He claims the tax would bring 20 billion euros to the French treasury, every year. The tax was also supported by French economists Olivier Blanchard (former chief economist of the IMF) and Jean Pisani-Ferry who had helped write President Macron's initial 2017 programme.

Public finances minister De Montchalin opposed the tax, saying it would have incertain returns for almost certain expatriations, risking a quickly diminished tax base after its implementation. She instead suggests to focus on closing abusive tax loopholes to crack down on "over-optimisation". Emmanuel Macron himself has voiced opposition to the tax during a recent council of ministers meeting, saying he would be vigilant to anything which would reverse his wealth tax reforms on non-real-estate assets.

Ecologist senators have said they will propose the tax again for the 2026 budget.