Do 1% of French tax households receive 96% of dividends?

In the midst of controversy surrounding France’s larger-than-expected deficit, the government is hunting for savings. The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire refuses to tax dividends. But Cécile Duflot, director of Oxfam France, assures that only 1% of households receive 96% of the dividends. That’s right, more precisely 1% of tax households.

Bruno Le Maire does not budge: there is no question of considering a tax on dividends. While the government is looking for savings to make, against a backdrop of a larger deficit than expected, the Minister of the Economy affirms that taxing dividends would amount to penalizing three million employee shareholders.

But for Cécile Duflot, the director of Oxfam France, the dividends go mainly to the richest: “96% of dividends go to 1% of households”, she says. True or false ?

1% of tax households concentrate 96% of dividends

That’s true, or more precisely 1% of tax households. The figures put forward by Cécile Duflot are found in an official report from France Stratégie, an body attached to Matignon. In 2021, 400,000 tax households out of 40 million concentrated 96% of the dividends paid.

The document even shows that 0.01% of tax households alone capture a third of the dividends. Concretely, this means that 4,000 tax households each receive more than one million euros. These proportions have been increasing since 2018.

Tax change in 2018 and record dividends in 2023

Since 2018, dividends have in fact been taxed less than before, because from that year, capital income is subject to a single flat-rate levy of 30%. Emmanuel Macron made it a campaign promise: it is the “flat tax”, which concerns capital income, interest and dividends. The France Stratégie report shows that since the implementation of this new tax system, dividend payments have increased.

Last year, dividend payments broke records in France, reaching just over 67 billion euros. A new level, in the wake of the global trend.

France is the country in the European Union where companies pay the most dividends to shareholders. These record sums are linked to the superprofits of certain companies, superprofits that part of the political class wants to tax, particularly within the left-wing opposition. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal assures that he has no dogma on this subject, while France’s deficit is 5.5% of GDP, or 154 billion euros.