THE WITHHOLDING TAX IS A TRAP FOR TAXPAYERS

François Hollande and his henchman Sapin are not a deceit closely. The latest: set up the levy of tax at the source on or after 1 January 2018. With the withholding tax, the state would provide the means to take what he wants, without most taxpayer’s awareness.

The stakes are high because this reform project is extremely serious for taxpayers. It affects a little more to our freedoms, yet already battered, and our money, earned by the sweat of our brow.

Taxpayers Associates says no to reform hatched in the fetid den of Bercy by senior officials, apprentice sorcerers of the Socialist Party. The opposition is silent about this project because it is in cahoots! All have the same goal: plucking the goose without make her scream.

The indebted state and its servants, politicians of all stripes are desperate. And they are desperate to tap into the portfolio of the French.

Taxpayers will no longer be able to assess their tax load. One of the best examples we have to keep in mind: the CSG (general social contribution) employees, levied at source, was multiplied by 7 in 7 years in the 1990s, without much French do realize it.

Not making the effort to pay their own taxes, some might feel that the state does not cost anything and would be encouraged to ask more and more public spending.

Companies, craftsmen and traders employers will be transformed into collectors of the State: it is not their role or their competence. Their first mission is to create wealth, not their devolution in taxes!

Entrepreneurs do not have the financial means for this reform: in 2012, the Council of compulsory levies (a branch of the Court of Auditors) held that such a measure would cost businesses between 1.3% and 3.5% of the money collected, an invoice can exceed 2 billion euros per year.

The company must prove the net salary diminished with these employees, including tax increases which it is not responsible.
The cost of tax collection would not decrease as would always controllers agents given the complexity of our tax system and the maintenance of the tax return.

With knowledge of the tax rate, employers could access by crosschecking information to personal information about their employees. Bercy says otherwise, but we know that is the word of a finance minister.

The levy of tax at source would make impossible the remission requests to the tax authorities, 215 000 in 2013. This reform would thus hundreds of thousands of French in a precarious financial situation. The State, another time, wants to use the first to finance its uncontrolled spending.

The levy of tax at source denies consent to taxation and is contrary to Article 14 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, incorporated in the Constitution of the Fifth Republic and prevailing so over all legislation: "All citizens have the right to ascertain, by themselves or through their representatives, the need for a public tax, to consent freely, to follow employment, and to determine the proportion, basis, collection and duration."

The deduction at source is the first step that the government works towards merging the income tax and the CSG. CSG now proportional, become progressive. The progressivity of the income tax in France destroyed employment by punishing the talent and innovative spirit. Such reform might bring more harm to the prosperity of French.

If Holland and Sapin really want to simplify the French tax system, they would do what taxpayers Associates has long advocated: remove the income tax and tax loopholes and transform the CSG into a single proportional tax at the same rate of 14% for all In other words, the flat tax.

This is what would be a real reform for a fairer and more efficient tax!