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Income tax and CSG, David Lisnard

Family quotient: Remove the cap on the family quotient

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Taking children into account in calculating income tax through additional shares, and cap on the advantage they provide. Direction rule: ↑ larger quotient advantage.

« notamment par le déplafonnement du quotient familial »1

Translation by the editorsnotably by removing the cap on the family quotient

Encoding

Position linked to an option of the cost schedule, with no parameter to set: see the costing.

Costing

Announced by the candidate

not announced

The programme does not cost this measure.

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

−€4.9bn

per year for the public accounts, revenue cut, range −€4.9bn to −€4.5bn.

The calculation

  • Complete removal of the family quotient cap (abolition of the cap on the benefit per half-share), static: revenue loss costed by the Cour des comptes (2020 income): Option costed by the source: a cost of €4.9bn (4.5 to 4.9) per year.

Complete removal of the cap: revenue loss costed by the Cour des comptes (€4.9bn, 2020 income; €4.5bn gain from the cap in 2021, lower bound). Same scale as any raising of the cap (Conseil des prélèvements obligatoires), which it bounds.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Marital quotient (2 shares for a couple) and family quotient (half-share per child, full share from the 3rd). The advantage is capped at €1,807 per half-share in 2026 (2025 income). According to the Cour des comptes (October 2023), taking the family into account in taxation cost €28.3bn in revenue in 2021, of which €16.5bn for the family quotient strictly speaking and €11.1bn for the marital quotient (2021 tax on 2020 income, income tax and CEHR); the IGF and the IGAS (June 2026) put the family quotient at €12.5bn for 2024 (Inès 2024 model). The cap brings in €4.5bn (2021); removing the cap would cost €4.9bn (Cour des comptes).

Horizon. Full year. For 2032, to be updated: the 2014 costing is old, the Cour des comptes costing relates to 2021 tax, and the IGF-IGAS costing to 2024 and 2026.

Limits. Lowering the ceiling: since 18 October 2026, coefficient derived from the IGF-IGAS (General Inspectorate of Finance and General Inspectorate of Social Affairs) (spending review of June 2026: a 10% cut in the ceiling of €1,807, i.e. about €181, would raise €580m), i.e. €0.32bn per €100 step (editors' calculation, at the centre and as upper bound); lower bound, the costing in the explanatory memorandum of the PLF 2014 (€1.03bn for a ceiling lowered from €2,000 to €1,500, with the share for the first child of single parents lowered by the same amount, 2013 income), i.e. €0.21bn per €100, in 2014 euros (0.20 at the centre before 18 October 2026). It is not linear, because the lower the ceiling, the more households are affected. Abolition of the family quotient in the strict sense: two sources with different methods, as a range (rule of 18 October 2026): €12.5bn for 2024 tax according to the IGF-IGAS (2026, Inès 2024 model; €12.2bn in 2019 according to the IGAS-IGF of 2021), lower bound, and €16.5bn for 2021 according to the Cour des comptes (Court of Audit) (table no. 14), upper bound, estimated from the 2017 amounts of André and Sireyjol (Insee), who measure the family quotient as the difference from joint taxation of couples; midpoint of the range at the centre, €14.5bn (16.5 before 18 October 2026). Marital quotient (quotient conjugal): costing by the Cour des comptes (table no. 14). The Cour des comptes assesses the two quotients one after the other: abolishing only the marital quotient while keeping the family quotient would not give exactly €11.1bn. Complete removal of the ceiling: the Cour des comptes writes that it « représenterait une perte de recettes estimée à 4,9 Md€ pour l'État » [“would represent an estimated revenue loss of €4.9bn for the State”] (2020 income), at the centre and as upper bound, and elsewhere costs the gain from the ceiling in 2021 at €4.5bn, lower bound; the ceiling has since been uprated in line with the tax scale (€1,807 in 2026). Raising the ceiling, extrapolated beyond €2,500 (€0.28bn per €100), remains below this amount up to about €3,550 at the centre. Full share for the second child (option, editors' calculation): the IGAS-IGF (2021) breaks down the €12.2bn of the 2019 family quotient by family size: €3.5bn for 3.1 million one-child households (€1,129 per household, one half-share), €5.4bn for 2.7 million two-child households (€2,000, two half-shares), €3.3bn for about 1 million households with three or more children (€3,300, at least four half-shares). The second half-share is therefore worth on average about €871 (2,000 − 1,129), the third and fourth €650 each ((3,300 − 2,000) / 2): the advantage of a half-share decreases with their number, ceiling included. One more half-share costs at most €871 per two-child household and €650 per larger household (upper bound: 2.7 × 0.871 + 1.0 × 0.650 = €3.0bn), at least €650 and €429 (same decrease of €221; lower bound: €2.2bn); midpoint, €2.6bn. 2019 data, not updated (the family quotient has changed little: €12.5bn in 2024). A microsimulation (LexImpact, OpenFisca) would replace this calculation. Marital quotient: lower bound = static high assumption of the Institut Montaigne (2022), €10bn; with tax optimisation, Montaigne goes down to €7.2bn (not counted, behavioural effect). In practice an abolition would be replaced by a tax credit or a per-child allowance, whose cost would be deducted. Raising the ceiling: coefficient taken from the two scenarios of the CPO (2024), costed on a ceiling of €1,759 (2023 income). €2.1bn for €741 gives €0.28bn per €100 step (central value, over the whole interval); €0.8bn for €241 gives €0.33bn (upper bound): the cost per euro decreases as the ceiling rises. No source read costs a ceiling above €2,500 or a complete removal of the ceiling.

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.

This lever in the method · Costing for David Lisnard

  1. Programme Nouvelle Énergie, « Réussir une nouvelle ambition française ». Read the programme page.

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