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Business taxation, Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Windfall profits and share buybacks: Permanent tax on excess profits, extended to all sectors

Direction of change: creation of a scheme, compared with current law.

The lever. Taxation of the exceptional profits of certain companies and of companies' buybacks of their own shares. Direction rule: ↑ heavier taxation.

« Établir une taxe permanente sur les superprofits étendue à l’ensemble des secteurs d’activité, pas uniquement au secteur énergétique »1

Translation by the editorsEstablish a permanent tax on excess profits extended to all sectors of activity, not only the energy sector

Encoding

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

Costing

Announced by the candidate

+€2.5bn

per year, gain for the public accounts. Éric Coquerel, press conference of 14 October 2026 (around 0:52:42): « Les rachats d'actions, 2,5 milliards. Je précise bien qu'il s'agit d'une taxe de 10% sur les annulations d'actions. » [“Share buybacks, 2.5 billion. I make it clear that this is a 10% tax on share cancellations.”]

Published costings

none

No external costing of this position recorded to date.

Our calculation

not costed

Tax with no rate or definition of windfall profit: nothing to cost. The 10% tax on share cancellations announced on 14 October 2026 has no equivalent in the cost schedule (the current tax on share buybacks yields €0.2bn per year in steady state); its announced yield (€2.5bn) is cited, not counted.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. Exceptional contribution on the profits of large companies (turnover > €1bn): €8bn forecast for 2025 and €7.5bn collected. Renewed in the LFI 2026 at a reduced level: €4bn in the PLF, €6bn according to the Senate, €7.3bn according to the OFCE. Tax on share buybacks (LFI 2025): €0.4bn in 2025, €0.2bn per year on a permanent basis.

Horizon. Full year; the surcharge is not in the law beyond 2026: making it permanent is a gain compared with current policies.

Limits. 2026 yield of the renewal: three sources diverge (€4bn / €6bn / €7.3bn). A « taxe sur les superprofits » (superprofits tax) on excess profit relative to an average requires a precise definition. No generic official costing. The tax on share buybacks is already in force. Tax on share buybacks at 33% (option, editors' calculation, 18 October 2026): the tax in force (8%, consolidated turnover above €1bn) raises €200m per year at steady state; at 33% on the same base, 0.2 × 33 / 8 = €0.83bn, i.e. €0.63bn more. A 33% rate would discourage buybacks: static costing, upper limit; extending the base to the acquisition value of the shares and to companies with turnover above €750m has no published base. 4% tax on dividends paid (option, editors' calculation, 18 October 2026): the 3% contribution on amounts distributed « a rapporté à l'État 1,8 milliard d'euros par an entre 2013 et 2017 » [“brought the State 1.8 billion euros per year between 2013 and 2017”] (question to the Government by Charles de Courson, National Assembly); at 4%, 1.8 × 4 / 3 = €2.4bn. Two biases in opposite directions: companies distributing less than €10m would pay 2% (counted as less), while SMEs exempt from the former contribution and the rise in dividends since 2017 are not counted (more). The 3% scheme was struck down (Conseil constitutionnel, 6 October 2017) and refunded (about €10bn); the legal compliance of a new tax is not assessed, as elsewhere in the cost schedule.

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 Jean-Luc Mélenchon

  1. L’Avenir en commun (édition 2025), p. 28. Open the document at this page.

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