Renforcer la progressivité des prélèvements sociaux

In France, the coexistence of three expensive policies intended to reduce the labor cost, a general payroll tax cut on low-paid jobs, the Tax Credit for Competition and Employment and the Responsibility Pact announced in early 2014 is a source of complexity that makes the overall tax-benefit system lacking clarity and transparency. This article drafts basic principles to redesign these policies. We draw our conclusions from the French experience in terms of social security contributions and payroll tax cuts and from economic theories : classical arguments, matching models and insights from applied econometric research. Our basic claim is that new tax cuts should be concentrated on the least paid jobs, so that the overall schedule should be more progressive.