Macron’s Assets: Opaque Declarations, Avoided Wealth Tax, and the Rothschild Mystery

There is a rule in the Republic: elected officials must truthfully declare their assets. It’s the law. It’s democratic transparency. It’s what we demand of citizens who hold power. Emmanuel Macron, however, has had a relationship with this rule that is, to say the least… creative.

Ever since he became Minister of the Economy in August 2014, Emmanuel Macron’s asset declarations have been controversial. That year, he reported modest assets totaling 156,000 euros—less than Nathalie Arthaud or Benoît Hamon. If not for Philippe Poutou and his 31,000 euros in assets, Macron would have been the poorest candidate in the 2017 presidential election. The man who made his fortune at Rothschild, an investment banker involved in multi-billion deals, was portrayed as less wealthy than candidates from the radical left. Is that credible? Off Investigation

Although they owned an apartment in Paris purchased for 890,000 euros in 2007 and a house in Le Touquet valued at 1,453,000 euros in 2015, the Macrons managed to avoid paying wealth tax entirely between 2008 and 2014. In 2015, the tax authorities estimated that the house in Le Touquet, owned by Brigitte Macron, had been undervalued by 253,000 euros. The couple had to pay the wealth tax for three years retroactively. An undervalued house. Wealth tax never paid for six years. Discovered after the fact by the tax authorities. Coincidence or tax planning? Off Investigation

Macron’s Assets: Opaque Declarations, Avoided Wealth Tax, and the Rothschild Mystery

There is a rule in the Republic: elected officials must truthfully declare their assets. It’s the law. It’s democratic transparency. It’s what we demand of citizens who hold power. Emmanuel Macron, however, has had a relationship with this rule that is, to say the least… creative.

Ever since he became Minister of the Economy in August 2014, Emmanuel Macron’s asset declarations have been controversial. That year, he declared modest assets totaling 156,000 euros—less than 

Emmanuel Macron’s declaration also included a 350,000-euro claim against his wife Brigitte that was not listed in his official assets. And the fees he received from Rothschild for a 9-billion-euro deal closed in 2012 were the subject of a declaration deemed implausible by several observers. Off Investigation

The moral of the story? Once elected to the Élysée, Emmanuel Macron abolished the wealth tax and replaced it with a more lenient “real estate wealth tax,” at the risk of reinforcing a sense of injustice already deeply felt among ordinary French people, which contributed to the outbreak of the Yellow Vests revolt in November 2018. Off Investigation

The man who hadn’t paid the wealth tax abolished the wealth tax. Sometimes chance works out well—for those who own the right properties.