France may or may not bring forward corporate tax cuts scheduled to be phased in over the next three years, depending on which report you believe. But, as the old saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire, and for such a report to have reached the French media in the first place indicates that the idea must have been discussed in the upper echelons of the French Government. This is a good thing for taxpayers in France because it betrays a sense of urgency on the part of some in Government that the pace of reform is going too slow. And it is. Under the Growth and Responsibility Pact, corporate tax is due to be cut from 33.33 percent to 28 percent – still high by international standards – by 2020.

If fact, it seemsthat President Hollande has experienced some kind of ideological epiphany. Because his current policies, compared to those when he first came to power four years ago, are almost like night and day, and he does seem to have recognized, perhaps belatedly, that France could be condemned to years of low growth and stagnation unless some of the sacred cows of the French way of life are sacrificed.

For more information on this, and other topical international tax matters, please visit: https://www.cchgroup.com/roles/corporations/international-solutions/research/global-tax-weekly-a-closer-look

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