If in Italy the net payment of salaries, i.e. with the automatic withholding of taxes and contributions, has been the practice for some time, the same does not apply to France, where employees are still paid the gross sum and things will change only from next year . A reform that has been talked about for decades, which Hollande dusted off in 2015 and which was originally supposed to take effect on 1 January this year. But the current president Macron has stopped everything, postponing the entry into force by a year. And bringing some expedients, because if it is true that the new system simplifies procedures for employees and can be a further guarantee against tax evasion (a phenomenon which, however, is not so widespread in France), it is also true that the collection of taxes is an extra burden for companies, and that the government has doubted the reform (which risked being further postponed) fearing some technical and/or bureaucratic inconvenience.
And therefore the new rule, for example, will allow companies with fewer than 20 employees to be exempt from withholding gross income. However, the reform will apply to both private employees and the self-employed and pensioners (also for the unemployed and maternity leave): the objective is mainly to guarantee the state coffers immediate money and not after a year (as happens in Italy with the declaration of income), and at the same time to ensure that citizens benefit from any tax reductions right away, without waiting for the following year, moreover risking that their position has changed in the meantime. For example, if a worker loses his job, under the current system he is still required to pay the previous year's taxes, which he is therefore forced to rigorously save. Precisely for this reason, according to the Terra Nova think tank, the new law will also give a boost to the economy and consumption: "What is not saved is consumed". With the current system, taxes in France are paid either monthly (in 10 monthly installments, from January to October, paying a tenth of the amount due by the 15th of each month) or in three installments of one third each in February, May and September . From 2019, on the other hand, one twelfth of the amount due will be automatically withdrawn every month, as has always been the case in Italy.
