It has generated profits for the State to 3

It is one of the main causes of slippage in public finances. Every year more numerous, the 500 tax niches - 468, to be precise - are all tax cuts to support a sector of activity (restaurants, real estate developers, etc.) or a category of population (families, sports, etc.). The oldest was created in 1807, with the aim to support farmers in the event of loss of crop or livestock. But nearly half of them were created over the last decade. Why such drift It is that, since 2002, the State submitted all of its expenses to a standard of evolution (at the rate of inflation), with the exception of tax niches. Consequence: the spending departments (agriculture, ecology, housing, etc.) prefer this lever to impose their priorities. Winner of this game, Corsica has only 16 tax niches. Farmers and fishermen are 50, artists 30. Conference on deficits, which opens today, must allow to put an end to this gradual urban sprawl of the tax, which has deprived the State of some 75 billion euros last year. A non-negligible amount, since it exceeds the proceeds of the tax paid by individuals (54 billion euros). Goal: Save 5 billion over the next two years. In attacking the less creative devices growth or employment. The situation today.

The most expensive 1: VAT renovation

It represents a cost of 5.1 billion euros for the State. Created in 1998 for social housing and extended the following year to all dwellings, it grows regularly since 2000. The rate reduced from 5.5 - compared to 19.6 s ' applies to the labour force employed (masons, painters, etc.) as well as the materials purchased through them (Windows, bathtubs, etc.). The first is hardly disputed: it allows to fight against the black work, a scourge in this sector. They are thus 3 to 5 billion euros of additional work per year are reported to the tax each year, considers Bercy. The measure would even permit the creation of 40,000 to 46,000 jobs. It encourages individuals to maintain their habitat: thanks to it, the addition of the industry would be of the order of annual EUR 2 billion. This provision is not cheaper: it represents an average cost of 40,000 to 50,000 euros per job and per year. The application of VAT to the materials is more disputed. It does not create an employment and encourages some artisans to recoup a portion of the rebate for their benefit, by increasing the price displayed to the client. Consequence: the Government reflects on the possibility of no longer reserve the VAT reduced to labour. A potential gain of 1 billion euros for the State.

2 Most common: retirement pensions.

Proposed since 1977, the discount of 10 on the amount of the retirement pension benefits 13 million households. The premium for the job comes in second with 8.9 million eligible taxpayers. The discount on retirement pensions is identical to that proposed to employees in respect of their professional fees - non-existent definition for pensioners. "This overriding taxation is more justified because pensioners are also rich, or even more, that assets", believes Olivier Ferrand, President of the Terra Nova Foundation, close to the Socialist Party. The measure is, in fact, far from being trivial: it represents a cost of $ 2.7 billion for the State.

3 The more exotic: overseas

This is the VIP niche by excellence: preferred by taxpayers on very high incomes, and in very high amounts, it allows to reduce the tax by building a new house in the DOM - TOM, or by subscribing to the capital of local companies. The development of these territories warrants, in fact, a multitude of tax cuts: they are now more than 20, and represent a cost of 3.5 billion euro to the State. Their benefit is hyperconcentré. So, 20 more large "breeding" reduce their tax of 800,000 euros, on average, more than 97 of which in respect of investments overseas. Tax benefits are so significant that other devices are becoming almost anecdotal. To remedy, parliamentarians decided to cap their profit: starting this year, it can no longer exceed 20,000 euros, 8 of the income of the taxpayer. Niches overseas remain no less an inexhaustible source of criticism: at the beginning of the year, the Court of Auditors has denounced the absence of "serious controls" on the part of the administration. Some hotel projects are validated as they contain balance or account, or estimate of the economic benefits. Some investments do not even see the day, while they give rise to tax reduction. Court advocates a complete review of these devices and more stringent controls.

4 Of the contested: gains on assignment

Default, which is not a tax niche, that is exemption from capital gains of assignment fact most ink this year. Since 2007, companies that sell a subsidiary not are more taxed in respect of their gains, as long as the have detained at least two years. The cost of the device warrant his qualifier of "superniche". It has generated profits for the State to 3.4 billion in 2007 and 12.5 billion in 2008. In 2009, the cost was two times less, crisis requires companies avoiding to loss of entries. "With such a measure, the State subsidizes large companies which do not need. 22 billion in three years, it is senseless! ", rebelled Jérôme Cahuzac, the PS President of the Board of Finance of the Assembly. In fact, Danone has saved 500 million corporate tax year last on the assignment of Danone Biscuit. Other major recipients: LBO funds, which buy companies to sell them a few years after. To the challenge, Bercy defending tooth and nail device: if capital gains were taxed in France, the transactions would be since the Belgium or Netherlands, via some holdings, said the Ministry. The French State would thus recover nothing in tax. In fact, in the OECD, 21 countries on 29 practice the exemption of capital gains. And since the France followed the current, the number of holdings tends to increase.

5 Of the Green: boilers

Sustainable development tax credit is one of the most popular niches by households. More than a million of them have used last year. The measure allows them to improve the energy efficiency of their principal residence, by isolating their Windows or installing new boilers for example. Its cost has almost doubled in 2009, from 1.5 to 2.8 billion euros. The scope of the measure is changing every year, to guide the public support to equipment which deserve more. "If 50 public support is justified for costly equipment representing only a small portion of market, such a level is less justified when the sector in question has strong development", it instructs the Ministry of ecology and sustainable development. Thus, the low-temperature boilers were excluded from the device this year and heat pumps are going to be also gradually excluded. Conversely, the tax credit has to be extended to the work of the opaque walls insulation energy performance diagnostics and geothermal heat pumps.

6. The more gourmet: truffle trees

Paradise of gastronomy, the France cultivates its strengths by encouraging farmers to develop the cultivation of the truffle. Since 2005, it exempts all the profits from the culture of truffle trees at an annual cost of EUR 1 million. The objective Offset the vagaries of this activity. Indeed, an oak in truffier remains generally unproductive years (ten to twenty years) after his plantation. Production cycles are random. The State encourages new plantings in relieving the agricultural benefits of this culture for fifteen years.

7 Of the concealed: journalists

Each year, the State decided to "retire" tax niches: as they enter the tax landscape, they are regarded as terms of calculating the tax, and as derogations from the common law. It is the case of the proposed tax reduction to journalists, which is between more in the list of tax expenditures. It represents for 2010 about lack EUR 50 million for the State. It was created in 1934, not to support the editors, but the patterns of press, allowing them to pay their staff less. It particularly intended to compensate for the absence or refusal to take into account, by most companies, expenditures incurred by journalists in the exercise of their profession. Until 1998, journalists had a 30 discount, in addition to the deduction of 10 applicable to all wages. Since this deduction has been deleted, journalists may deduct 7.650 euros of their income, an amount frozen for several years.