French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu plans a tax targeting individuals with annual incomes of over 250,000 euros to try to win the Socialist opposition's backing for his government's 2026 state budget, financial daily Les Echos said on Saturday, APA reports.
Les Echos reported that Lecornu plans two measures, each targeting taxpayers declaring more than 250,000 euros ($300,000) in income - or 500,000 euros for a couple - to raise an additional 3 billion euros in fiscal revenue next year.
A first measure would be to renew a one-off tax introduced by predecessor Francois Bayrou last year which aims to ensure that all high-earning tax households concerned pay at least 20% of their income in taxes.
The minority government also wants to crack down on the super-wealthy's use of holding companies as a piggy bank, it said, as part of a drive against tax optimisation.
Les Echos said the finance ministry had identified some 30,000 financial structures that would fall within the scope of the measure, notably for cashing in dividends but never re-distributing them, so that dividend tax can be avoided.
The holding company measure is expected to yield just over 1 billion euros for 2026, the paper said, adding that - along with other measures - the total expected additional contribution from the wealthiest individuals would be between 4 billion and 4.5 billion euros.
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