{"id":835,"date":"2025-10-14T16:31:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T14:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/?p=835"},"modified":"2025-10-14T16:31:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T14:31:09","slug":"tax-on-family-holdings-threatened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/taxe-sur-les-holdings-familiales-menace\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax on family holding companies: a threat to small asset structures?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The draft 2026 budget about to be unveiled by S\u00e9bastien Lecornu includes strong measures designed to \"<strong>restoring tax fairness<\/strong>\".<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Among them: a surtax on the profits of large companies and, above all, a tax on asset holding companies, presented as a response to the \"financial crisis\".<strong>tax avoidance strategies<\/strong>\"family structures that accumulate profits without distributing them (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bfmtv.com\/economie\/economie-social\/finances-publiques\/gel-des-prestations-sociales-et-des-retraites-taxe-sur-les-holdings-contribution-sur-les-hauts-revenus-ce-que-contient-le-budget-lecornu-qui-prevoit-30-milliards-d-economies_AD-202510140445.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BFMTV<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Officially, the aim is to make profitable companies and family-owned structures contribute more to the budget effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But behind this talk of fairness lies a strong signal: capital and structured assets are once again a prime tax target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\">Structural risk for holding companies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">If confirmed, this measure could radically redefine the status of patrimonial structures, hitherto regarded as mere \"holding shells\".<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In practice :<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">An asset structure, even a modest one, could be subject to additional taxation if its retained earnings are deemed excessive.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The boundary between asset management structures and taxable \"capital-intensive\" parent companies risks becoming blurred, opening the door to legal uncertainty.<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, the simple act of hoarding in an asset structure could tomorrow be interpreted as a form of tax avoidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\">Possible scenarios<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Partial taxation: additional tax on undistributed income above a certain threshold.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Tolerance threshold for small holding companies, to avoid a boomerang effect on modest entrepreneurs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Deferred or retroactive application, depending on when the 2026 Finance Act comes into force.<br><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\">The impact on assets<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Dividends held in a holding company will lose some of their appeal if the structure becomes taxed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Management must justify the profits retained (reinvestment, projects, internal growth).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Family transmission structures are likely to be penalized, even though they often serve to stabilize business assets.<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Clearly, the paradigm<strong>capitalize today, distribute later<\/strong>\"could be called into question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\">Consequences for managers of SMEs and family holding companies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Small management holding companies, which are often used to centralize dividends or prepare for business transfers, could become tax-penalized structures if the tax is applied across the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Managers should consider :<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">a rebalancing between remuneration and dividends,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">or the creation of a holding company abroad within a legal and declared framework (Portugal, United Kingdom, United States).<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">For self-employed persons working via a SASU or EURL, and who had created a <br>asset management company to manage their dividends, this development could reduce the scope for optimization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The trade-offs between hoarding and immediate distribution will have to be reviewed. Individuals using a non-trading company or a passive parent company to manage a portfolio of assets will need to be particularly vigilant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The tax authorities could reclassify certain structures as abusive optimization vehicles if no real economic activity is demonstrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\">Anticipate before you act<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The idea of taxing wealth management companies confirms a major trend: the taxation of capital is once again becoming a political issue. In this context, the best defense remains anticipation: understand the signals, measure your exposure, and structure your assets before the reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">At WizeCounsel, we have already modeled the possible impacts of this type of taxation in our analysis report on raising the PFU to 36 %.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This document, now reserved for experienced managers and investors, presents several asset and international structuring scenarios that can be applied today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">To obtain the complete confidential memorandum or a personalized tax diagnosis, <a href=\"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/contact-consultant-societe-offshore-international\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"50\">contact us<\/a> directly :<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tax on family holding companies: a threat to small asset structures?<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[24,27,25],"class_list":["post-835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiscalite-structuration-internationale","tag-holding","tag-impots","tag-taxe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/holding-taxe-france.avif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839,"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions\/839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wizecounsel.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}