The creation of the PACS in 1999 modified the French matrimonial landscape. The growing number of contracted PACs has led to wondering if couples now prefer the PACS for marriage or cohabitation. Marion Leturcq shows that it is not justified to allocate the recent decrease in the number of marriages to the PACS, because it responds to a trend drop since the 1950s, attributable to a disaffection of marriage. The study of the 2005 reform of the PACS couples taxation regime reveals that the PACS conclusion significantly obeys tax motivations.
Photo : Crash. © Pierre Guillien. Exhibition Le Tag at the Grand Palais – The Gallizia collection.
On August 25, 2007, walking in the streets of Aurillac, you could hear a couple discuss their life projects. Him : “ We’re going to pacer, eh, huh ? We are going to pacate for taxes and we will marry later, out of love. “Since November 15, 1999, spouses who wish to give their couple a legal status are no longer forced to say” Yes Before the Mayor and can conclude a civil solidarity pact, known as PACS. He was born from the demands of homosexual couples to legal recognition of their union but from its creation, it was opened to heterosexual couples. At its beginnings, the PACS was very different from marriage, from an institutional point of view (it is considered a matrimonial status only since 2007), fiscal (taxation of income and successions), insurance (reversion pensions) and legal (rights and duties towards the partner). Two main changes have helped bring the PACS closer to marriage. First tax: since 2005, the taxation on the income of PACS partners has been identical to that of married couples and makes the PACS more attractive than it was. Then legal: on June 23, 2006, the rights and duties towards the partner were made closer to those of the spouses. In addition, since 2007, the imposition of successions has been the same for spouses and for PACS partners.
The number of PACS has continued to increase: 22,276 PACS concluded in 2000, 102,148 in 2007. The PACS was able to seduce heterosexual couples: they represent 75% of the PACS contracted in 2000 and 93% in 2006. However, with 250,000 contracts per year, marriage is still the couples of couples.
A greater legal proximity of the PACS and marriage, a large number of PACS couples: can we think that the PACS has become an alternative to marriage ? This is the opinion of theINSEE who says that “ Couples are increasingly choosing the PACS as an alternative to marriage “, But certainly not that of the young man of Aurillac, who plans to” (get married) later, out of love ». For him, the PACS is “ for taxes ». What uses do couples do PACS ? The latter is a refuge for couples reluctant to marriage and wishing to pay less tax or a real alternative to marriage ? Do we have sufficient data today to answer these questions ?
Does the PACS replace the wedding ? Ambiguous data
Shortly after the creation of the PACS, the number of weddings began to decrease, while the number of PACs has continued to increase. Simple coincidence or cause and effect relationship ?
Between 2000 and 2006, the number of weddings per 1000 people aged 20 to 59 (in the rest of the text, the rates are calculated for 1000 people of this age group) has gone from 9.4 to 8.0 (see graph 1), its lowest level since the 1950s. Meanwhile, the rate of heterosexual PACs increased by 0.55 to 2.2, largely compensating for the drop in weddings: (Weddings and heterosexual PACs) has not ceased to increase since 2002. The evolution of the marriage rate since 2000 would lead to a decrease in it, but the analysis of the series since 1949 leads to put this observation into perspective: stable in the 1950s around 14 per 1000, it reached the heights and then fell in the 1970s, and has stabilized since 1985 around 8.5 for 1000. growing the union rate to 10 per 1000, which remains far from the 14 marriages per 1000 people from the 1950s. Analysis of quarterly marriages and PACS data in the departments does not suggest that the drop in the number of marriages is attributable upwards in the number of PACS. To do this, it would be necessary to conclude at first that the numbers of weddings and PACS are respectively down and up in a sustainable way, both at national and departmental level (at least in a large number of departments) ; Then, in a second step, it would be necessary to be able to attribute the drop in one to the increase in the other. However, in the case of weddings, it is already too much advancing than talking about recent decrease in marriage, with regard to the long -term series. Thus, the simple view of national and departmental data does not allow to know if the PACS, today, replaces marriage.
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The PACS is also only one factor among others to explain the evolution of the marriage rate. Demographic factors first: the 1970s were able to see the many baby boomers arriving at the age of getting married. Legal factors then: the institution of marriage was profoundly modified with the divorce reforms of 1975 and 2005. Finally, the advantages to be married could be modified, for example following the adoption of the amendment of Courson in 1995, which lesses the “ Concubinage bonus And, by ricochet, values marriage.
It is however more likely to think that couples do not choose marriage, cohabitation or PACS in absolute terms but opt, at the moment, for the type of union which suits them best, considering the immediate needs (taxes, employment, housing, insurance) or to come (social recognition, desire for children) and the costs generated by this union, immediate (celebration, time) or potential). These needs change during the life of a couple, which leads them to revise their choice. They also evolve from one generation to another: for example, social insurance is accessible through the employment contract and marriage makes it possible to offer a legal status to inactive women. In French society in the 1950s, the activity rate of women was lower than today, marriage presented a stronger insurance aspect than it is now. It is therefore necessary to be interested in what a matrimonial status brings compared to another, for a given couple, at a given time to account for the uses that couples make of the PACS and its position in relation to marriage: substitute, short -term substitute or advanced coniscovery ?
To do this, data at the departments are not enough, you must be able to follow the life trajectories of individuals. In France, the little individual data that exists on the PACS is very difficult to access. The departmental data we have, however, allow us to analyze some of the uses that couples have of the PACS. Using the characteristics of the 2005 partners’ taxation reform, it is for example possible to determine how many couples, like that of Aurillac, is pop for taxes ».
PACE FOR Taxes ?
The 2005 reform of the income taxation of PACS partners allows couples to make significant savings on the amount of taxes to pay for the year of the PACS. Until 2005, PACS couples were to wait three years to jointly declare their income. The date of the PACS then had no impact on the amount of tax paid. Since 2005, PACS partners have been subject to the same tax system as married couples. They establish three income tax declarations for the year during which the Union is contracted: one each for income received until the date of the PACS, a municipality for income collected for the rest of the year. The date which leads to minimizing the amount of tax payable depends on the level of income of each and the difference in income between the spouses, but it still belongs to the 2e or 3e quarter.
As early as 2005, the number of PACS contracted during the 2e and 3e quarters suddenly grows, the seasonality of the PACs is reversed (see Chart 2). How to interpret this increase: windfall effect for couples who would have been paches in any way with or without the reform or incentive effect to pacser ? We can assess the impact of the reform by comparing the increase in the number of PACs during the 1er and 4e quarters, supposedly unchanged, to increase during the 2e and 3e quarters. In a study (to be published) that I carried out on departmental data, I estimate that 38% of the PACs contracted since 2005, at most, can be attributed to the tax reform. However, among these 38%, some are attributable to the incentive effect of the reform but others to potential calendar effects: couples that were planning to pacse in the first quarter preferred to delay their PACS to benefit from tax savings. I take into account these potential effects by assuming that certain PACs have been shifted over time, I consider their number by describing what would have been the natural growth of the number of PACs in the first and fourth quarters in the absence of reform. There are then 20% of PACS couples since 2005 attributable to the reform, giving the minimum number of PACs that can be attributed to the reform.
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Thus, a significant part of the contracted PACS can be attributed to the response of couples, which quickly adjust their behavior to a change in taxation. The tax economy relates mainly to the first year of PACS, indicating that the choices concerning their matrimonial status can be guided by short -term considerations. The reform does not make PACS a fiscal niche. 20% of PACS couples are due to the reform, nearly 45,000 couples over three years, which certainly represents a small number of couples living in cohabitation in France.
Thus, the uses that couples have of the PACS today, in particular in relation to marriage are still largely unknown. Does it replace the marriage, is it a first step towards it or is it considered as a form of cohabitation advanced by couples reluctant to marriage ? It is not justified to allocate the recent decrease in the number of marriages to the PACS, because it responds to a lower trend in the number of marriage since the 1950s, attributable to a disaffection of marriage. This disaffection is somewhat compensated by the PACS, thanks to which the rate of registered unions increases.