Inheritance tax is a recurring topic in election campaigns. This was still the case during the last presidential election. However, it only brings in 13 billion euros, or just over 1% of public revenue. For André Masson, economist at the Paris School of Economics, the importance of this tax is that it cannot be approached solely from the angle of its financial return. This is the starting point of Chronicle of a declining inheritance taxthe book he devotes to her.
For the author, the justification for a high inheritance tax comes from the fact that it is a recognized means of ensuring greater equality of opportunity. Conversely, the population generally considers it a cynical levy on death and a machine for destroying family solidarity. An old image which means that in history, the periods during which large sums were collected from estates are relatively short. This was only the case in the Roman Empire, from 6 AD to the first years of the Byzantine period, then from the 18th century, knowing that we are now witnessing a decline everywhere.
On a more strictly economic level, this tax has the defect of discouraging long-term savings, encouraging economic players to spend so as not to leave anything behind them, even though the ecological and energy issues of the moment require them to be immobilized over a long period. funds to finance the necessary investments. Faced with these arguments, the author insists on the need to rehabilitate long-term savings and direct them towards investment, innovation and not towards State financing.
Since, given the evolution of life expectancy, inheritance is increasingly a mechanism for transferring older retirees to younger retirees, it is advisable, according to André Masson, to encourage donations to next generation while still in the prime of life. As for the tax stricto sensu on inheritances, he proposes to maintain it at a high level, but to exempt from it long-term financial investments immobilized over a period of thirty years or more. What characterizes the book is that, despite an obvious technicality, a desire if not for exhaustiveness at least for deepening and an assumed handling of many concepts of economic theory, it is written in a pleasant style and according to a sequence very pedagogical reasoning. Do not hesitate to dive into it, while keeping in mind that it is neither a tax law manual nor a collection of advice on tax optimization.
Chronicle of a declining inheritance taxby André Masson, PUF, 436 pages, 25€
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