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Consumption, David Lisnard

VAT: VAT at 12.5% and 20% (2025 op-ed); question « pas tranchée » [“not settled”] in programme

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Value added tax, paid on consumption: standard rate and reduced rates on certain products. Direction rule: ↑ heavier VAT.

« Une simplification vers une structure à deux taux — 12,5 % et 20 % — permettrait de réduire d’environ 25 milliards les charges pesant sur le travail, tout en améliorant l’efficacité du système. »1

Translation by the editorsA simplification towards a two-rate structure — 12.5% and 20% — would make it possible to reduce the charges weighing on labour by around 25 billion, while improving the efficiency of the system.

Words of David Lisnard, Tribune « La vraie injustice du système fiscal vient de sa complexité », Le Figaro (reprise sur unenouvelleenergie.fr), 28 May 2025. Position taken from public statements, not from a written programme.

Encoding

No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.

Costing

Announced by the candidate

−€25bn

per year, revenue cut. « réduire d’environ 25 milliards les charges pesant sur le travail » [“reduce the charges on labour by about 25 billion”] (op-ed of 28 May 2025)

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

not costed

The programme (« Réussir une nouvelle ambition française », read on 12 October 2026), more recent than the op-ed of 28 May 2025, does not settle the matter: « La question de la TVA « Compétitivité / Relocalisation » afin de baisser les charges sur les salaires reste posée. C’est un sujet qui n’a pas été tranché au sein des groupes de travail » [“The question of a ‘Competitiveness / Relocation’ VAT in order to lower charges on wages remains open. It is a subject that has not been settled within the working groups”]. Common rule: the candidate's most recent source prevails; the position is therefore not costed. The 2025 op-ed merged the reduced rates (10%, 5.5% and 2.1%) into a 12.5% rate and allocated the revenue to a decrease of about €25bn in charges on labour; the programme mentions VAT rising over twelve years towards a single rate, « par exemple de 25 % » [“for example of 25%”], with a decrease in charges on wages, without adopting it.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Standard rate of 20% since 1 January 2014 (about 65% of taxable uses); reduced rates of 10%, 5.5% and 2.1%. Net yield 2025: €209bn for general government as a whole, of which €99bn for the State. Total net VAT forecast at €215.4bn in 2026 (PLF). A fraction also funds public broadcasting (compensation of €3.9bn in 2026).

Horizon. Full year, in 2025 euros; for 2032, of the order of +15 to +20% (assumption).

Limits. Unit costs from the DG Trésor (Trésor-Éco no. 371, September 2025, static, model based on the 2022 accounts aged to 2025): yield of one point gross (table 1) and net (table 2), by rate. Part of VAT is paid by public administrations themselves: the net figure deducts the resulting increase in public spending. Cost schedule rule: net at the centre and as lower bound, gross as upper bound (standard rate 7.5 and 8.9; 10%: 1.6 and 1.9; 5.5%: 2.0 and 2.4; 2.1%: 0.4 and 0.4, equal after the publication's rounding; all rates: 11.4 and 13.7, published totals, the sum of the rounded rates giving 11.5 and 13.6). EU law (VAT directive revised in 2022) also governs reduced rates on fossil fuels. Regressive effect: −0.7% of purchasing power for the first quintile and −0.4% for the last, per point. Targeted cuts (energy, essential products) are costed on the base of each product. VAT at 5.5% on energy: €11.3bn is the static costing of the Institut Montaigne (2024), on 2022 VAT revenue (€15.6bn at the 20% rate on petroleum products, gas and electricity). Its range of €9bn to €13.6bn adds a 20% variation in consumption and prices: it is not a static costing and is not counted. Since 1 August 2025, electricity standing charges have been taxed at 20%: the base concerned is broader than in 2022. According to the same source, a reduced rate on motor fuels is not permitted by the VAT directive (annex III); for gas and electricity, it requires the Commission's agreement. This option concerns VAT only; a cut in excise duties is costed under the “Taxes on fuel and energy” and “Electricity prices, European market” levers. VAT at 5.5% on energy: €11.3bn is the gross loss (Institut Montaigne, 2022 data); the DG Trésor note says nothing about energy: the centre applies the net-to-gross ratio published for the 20% rate, at which this base is taxed (7.5 / 8.9 = 0.843), i.e. €9.52bn (calculation; 9.40 with the ratio for all rates, 11.4 / 13.7). Montaigne points out that the VAT directive does not allow a reduced rate on motor fuels. Energy sources taken one by one (options “gas and electricity”, “motor fuels and electricity” and “motor fuels, electricity and gas”), editors' calculations: Montaigne details 2022 VAT at the 20% rate by product (petroleum products €10,478m, natural gas €1,282m, electricity €3,872m; table based on the SDES 2022 monetary energy balance); moving from 20% to 5.5% removes 72.5% of it (1 − 5.5 / 20), i.e. €7.6bn (petroleum products), €0.93bn (gas) and €2.81bn (electricity) gross, the sum of which gives back the €11.3bn; same net-to-gross ratio at the centre (0.843). Gas and electricity: €3.74bn gross, 3.15 net. Motor fuels: VAT on petroleum products minus that on households' heating oil (€4,478.6m of spending including VAT in 2022, series N139MMR of the long series of the SDES 2022 energy balance, i.e. about €746m of VAT at the 20% rate), i.e. €9,732m, and a gross loss of €7.06bn; with electricity, €9.86bn gross, 8.31 net. Motor fuels, electricity and gas, without heating oil: 7.06 + 2.81 + 0.93, i.e. €10.79bn gross, 9.09 net. The rest of the VAT on petroleum products other than households' motor fuels (about €0.4bn, heating oil and other products bought by purchasers who do not deduct it) remains counted with motor fuels: slight overestimate. Reduced rates (parameters “10%”, “5.5%” and “2.1%”): the yield of one point of each is published by the DG Trésor (net at the centre, gross as upper bound); this is a primary source that directly costs the point, with no coefficient to derive. Measured range: one point of change; beyond that (reduced rates merged into a single rate, for example), linear extrapolation, marked as such, which ignores behavioural effects, shifts in consumption between rates and the limits placed on reduced rates by the VAT directive. The “+1 point” options for a reduced rate are worth one step. End of VAT on fuel excise duty (option, 18 October 2026, editors' calculation): 20% of gross excise duty on motor fuels (€31.3bn in 2025, Voies et moyens of the PLF 2027) × share of road excise duty paid by households (63.5% in 2022: €18.4bn out of €29.0bn, SDES), i.e. €3.98bn at the centre and as upper bound; lower bound, same calculation on the 2026 forecast (€30.2bn), €3.8bn. This is the same household share as in the excise duty coefficient (“Taxes on fuel and energy” lever). VAT paid on excise duty by businesses, which is deductible, is not net revenue; that paid by public administrations and by purchasers who do not deduct VAT is not counted (slight underestimate). EU law (according to the government's answer published on 3 March 2020, the VAT directive requires excise duties to be included in the VAT base) is not assessed, as elsewhere in the cost schedule. Works other than energy renovation at the standard rate (option, 18 October 2026): cost of tax expenditure 730213 relative to the standard rate, €2,465m forecast for 2026 (centre and upper bound), €2,195m actual in 2024 (lower bound), static. The 10% rate on passenger transport is not a tax expenditure (Voies et moyens, volume II, p. 10): no published costing of a move to 5.5%. Takeaway food is not separated from on-site dining in tax expenditure 730221.

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. Tribune « La vraie injustice du système fiscal vient de sa complexité », Le Figaro (reprise sur unenouvelleenergie.fr), 28 May 2025. Words of David Lisnard. Position taken from public statements, not from a written programme. Read the source (Tribune « La vraie injustice du système fiscal vient de sa complexité », Le Figaro (reprise sur unenouvelleenergie.fr)).

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