Two petitions were examined in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday 6 February: Petition 2596, which aims to “reduce tax on the wages of single people”, submitted by Ardacan Kete, and Petition 2620, which aims to remove single-parent families from tax class 1A.
Was it taxation or the family, and children in particular, that was at the centre of the debate on Tuesday? It long has been known that tax class 1A penalises . It was created in 1990, when the aim was to favour married couples.
That approach is no longer tenable today, participants in the debate agreed. But class 1A also penalises with children and widowers who, either by choice or following death or divorce, change class, after a three-year deferment in the event of widowhood or divorce.
In favour of child-centred tax rates
For the signatories of petition 2620--“Abolish tax class 1A: the transfer of tax class 2 to tax class 1A leads to a loss of income for families, increasing a situation of insecurity that should not be underestimated in a context of crisis”--the priority is the future of children.
Stéphanie Ravat, Maria Ramirez Escano and Viviane Hansen Adams stressed this point strongly. “Tax class 1A taxes single parents much more heavily than singles or others. Why do we need more tax fairness? Well, because children in single-parent families are often less successful in life. And the move to class 1A reduces the resources that can be devoted to the child’s welfare and education.” They argue “that the decisive factor in allocating a tax class should in fact be the presence of children in the family. This includes students. It’s in society’s interest”.
Keeping pressure on government
Although the reform is in the pipeline, the petitioners wanted above all to keep up the pressure on the government. “I’m pleased that a reform is planned, but I hope we won’t need another petition in 2027,” said Ardacan Kete.
Finance minister (CSV) sought to reassure them. He acknowledged that societal changes in family models had to be reflected in the tax system, but that the subject was complex. “In 2025, we will not have individual taxation”, he insisted. But he announced that on 1 January 2025, “class 1A will be flattened”. In other words, the tax burden will be reduced for taxpayers. “--and which mainly benefits taxpayers in category 1A--the scale will be further reduced for this category”.
He reaffirmed the government’s objective of putting a tax reform bill to parliament in 2026 that will put individual taxpayers at the heart of the system. “There will be a single tax class with adjustments based on certain criteria, including the presence of children in a household,” he said. “The new system will be introduced gradually for technical and fairness reasons,” Roth pointed out that he has only been in office “for 82 days”.
In the meantime, Ravat, Ramirez Escano and Hansen Adams have called for transitional measures to help single-parent families. These include extending the grace period for remaining in class 2 after widowhood or divorce from three to five years. “The priority is the future of the children”, they insisted.
Originally published in French by and translated for Delano