ODA | Management packages disrupted by the French Finance Act for 2025 – Benoît Gréteau and Charlotte Bittermann
Benoît Gréteau, partner, and Charlotte Bittermann analyze for Option Droit & Affaires about the impact of the 2025 Finance Act on management packages.
Instruments reserved for managers in connection with leveraged transactions have historically developed without their own legislative framework.
The Finance Act 2025 now imposes a tax and social security corset on management package gains, with the aim of providing greater security for their beneficiaries. Strictly applied, however, the new provisions are likely to destabilize the employee shareholding policies promoted by growth companies, or even call into question their capital ownership strategy.
This risk has been deemed sufficiently critical by Bercy that it may soon be accepted that transactions involving the reinvestment of managers will not give rise to taxation of salary gains. An article in today’s Les Echos announces that a draft administrative doctrine will be put out to consultation in May, followed by new measures introduced in the Finance Act for 2026, notably concerning reinvestments.
Key points raised:
— The pre-existing framework: an analysis grid drawn up by case law, source of legal uncertainty
— The new rules: a welcome clarification of the tax and social regime (article 163 bis H of the CGI)
— The limits of a monomorphic legal reading grid
— The weakening of growth companies’ shareholding : management packages, BSPCE.
Find Benoît Gréteau and Charlotte Bittermann’s full article down below.
