Income tax and CSG, David Lisnard
Flat-rate levy on capital (flat tax): PFU confirmed, property income under the same regime, capital taxed at a reduced rate
Direction of change: decrease, compared with current law.
The lever. Single rate applied to dividends, interest and capital gains on securities, tax and social levies included: maintained, increased or return to the income tax scale. Direction rule: ↑ heavier levy on capital income.
« L’IR combinerait une taxation proportionnelle allégée des revenus du capital (y compris immobilier) […] Le « prélèvement forfaitaire unique » serait confirmé comme socle, dans une logique de flat-tax lisible et stable. La fiscalité des revenus du capital serait unifiée : revenus financiers et immobiliers soumis au même régime, supprimant les distorsions qui aggravent la crise du logement. »1Translation by the editorsIncome tax would combine reduced proportional taxation of capital income (including property) […] The “single flat-rate levy” would be confirmed as the base, in the spirit of a clear and stable flat tax. The taxation of capital income would be unified: financial and property income subject to the same regime, eliminating the distortions that worsen the housing crisis.
Words of David Lisnard, Tribune « Changer de logiciel fiscal », Atlantico (reprise sur unenouvelleenergie.fr), 16 April 2026. Position taken from public statements, not from a written programme.
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No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.
Costing
Announced by the candidate
not announced
The cited source does not cost this measure.
Published costings
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No external costing of this position recorded to date.
Our calculation
not costed
Property income subject to the flat tax (PFU) instead of the income tax schedule: the cost depends on the distribution of property income (€34.97bn of income declared under the actual-expenses regime and €8.48bn under the micro-foncier regime, 2024 income, DGFiP, breakdown of income by category) across marginal tax rates, which the DGFiP does not publish; no source read costs the measure (the CPO, in 2024, mentions it without costing it: increase in the marginal rate in the middle of the distribution, decrease in the top tenth). The rate of the « allégé » [“lighter”] flat rate is not given; the op-ed confirms the flat tax (PFU), denounces its rise from 30% to 31.4% without saying whether it goes back to 30%.
Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Flat tax (PFU) of 31.4% since the LFSS 2026: 12.8% income tax and 18.6% social levies (CSG raised to 10.6% for most securities). It was 30% (12.8 + 17.2) from 2018 to 2025. The option for the income tax scale remains open. 2025 yield: €5.3bn of income tax on income and capital gains from securities; €18.5bn of CSG and CRDS on capital income; €14.4bn of other social contributions.
Horizon. Full year, in 2025 euros; to be indexed for 2032.
Limits. Capital income is highly sensitive to taxation: dividends jumped after 2018. Static costing therefore overstates the gain from an increase; behavioural effects are presented separately. The cost of €1.9bn of the PFU in 2019 (€1.3bn in 2018) is the Government's costing, assuming unchanged behaviour, reported by the Senate (general report on the PLF 2018); the same report cites economists' estimates of « une dizaine de milliards » [“around ten billion”] in steady state, not static and not counted. Upper bound: the Institut Montaigne (2022) costs the return to the income tax schedule at €2.1bn to €2.3bn « à assiette constante » [“on a constant base”] (ex ante cost of the PFU of €1.6bn to €1.8bn, updated with the growth in capital income from 2018 to 2022, in 2022 euros), and at €1.5bn with behavioural effects (not counted). Per-point calculations divide the revenue by the rate, without microsimulation.
- Sénat, rapport général n° 108 (2017-2018) sur le PLF 2018, tome II, examen de l'article 11 (prélèvement forfaitaire unique), 2017-11-23: « Cela conduira à augmenter le coût de la réforme pour les finances publiques : en effet, le coût des réformes est toujours évalué par le Gouvernement à comportement constant. Le chiffre de 1,3 milliard d'euros en 2018 et de 1,9 milliard d'euros en 2019 ne prend donc pas en compte l'impact de l'optimisation fiscale. »
- Institut Montaigne, Présidentielle 2022, « Supprimer la flat tax et imposer les revenus du capital comme ceux du travail » (Jean-Luc Mélenchon), copie d'archive du 13 mai 2022, 2022-04: « Gain entre 2,1 Md€ et 2,3 Md€ (à assiette constante) ; 1,5 Md€ en prenant en compte les effets de comportement sur le versement de revenus mobiliers. […] La mise en place du PFU en 2018 représente un coût de 1,8 Md€ pour l’État en rythme de croisière (1). »
- Fipeco, Les impôts sur le patrimoine des ménages, 2026: « de 5,3 Md€ pour le prélèvement sur les revenus et plus-values mobilières au titre de l'impôt sur le revenu et de 14,4 Md€ pour les contributions sociales hors CSG et CRDS ... En 2026, le taux des contributions sociales passe à 18,6 %, et le taux global du PFU à 31,4 % »
- Fipeco, L'impôt sur le revenu et la CSG, 2026-06-01: « Revenus du capital 18 [Md€ de CSG en 2025] »
How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.
- Tribune « Changer de logiciel fiscal », Atlantico (reprise sur unenouvelleenergie.fr), 16 April 2026. Words of David Lisnard. Position taken from public statements, not from a written programme. Read the source (Tribune « Changer de logiciel fiscal », Atlantico (reprise sur unenouvelleenergie.fr)).
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