The economic impact of firms’ transfers carried out under a Dutreil pact / Dutreil scheme

Bach, Laurent; Fize, Etienne; Guillouzouic, Arthur; Bozio, Antoine; Malgouyres, Clément

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The economic impact of firms’ transfers carried out under a Dutreil pact / Dutreil scheme

Laurent Bach, Etienne Fize, Arthur Guillouzouic, Antoine Bozio, Clément Malgouyres

November 2025

This report examines the effects of the Dutreil scheme on the performance of family-owned firms that are being transferred.

Reference IPP Report No. 62

Quote this publication

Bach, Laurent, Bozio, Antoine, Fize, Etienne, Guillouzouic, Arthur, Malgouyres, Clément (2025). ‘The economic impact of business transfers carried out under a Dutreil pact / Dutreil scheme’, IPP Reports, No. 62. The Institut des politiques publiques.

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Presentation

The IPP was approached by the Court of Auditors to provide its technical expertise in connection with the Court’s preparation of the evaluation report on the Dutreil pact / Dutreil scheme.

Researchers from the IPP’s Business Division focused their work on the following areas:

analysing the profile of beneficiary firms and breaking down the cost of the scheme according to firm size and sector
évaluation of the scheme’s impact on firms by comparing the dynamics of beneficiary firms with those of non-beneficiary firms under the Dutreil pact / Dutreil scheme in relation to business succession
estimation of the impact on corporate governance and shareholding structure, investment and business activity
évaluation des effets du dispositif sur la trajectoire salariale des travailleurs présents dans l’entreprise peu avant la transmission

Key Results

There has been a steady increase in tax expenditure associated with the scheme since 2020.
In terms of sectoral distribution, the industrial sector accounts for 17 per cent of tax expenditure. Medium-sized industrial firms account for 15 per cent of tax expenditure.
With regard to business transfers, there is greater stability in shareholding for firms benefiting from the Pacte in the short term (over the duration of the Pacte).
Whilst beneficiary firms are less likely to come under foreign control, this risk is very limited across the entire sample. Furthermore, the negative effect of the Dutreil pact / Dutreil scheme on this probability is mainly detectable during the term of the pact.
No effect of the scheme on firms’ investment rates is observed. The career trajectories of employees affected by a business transfer are statistically largely comparable between transfers carried out under and outside the Dutreil pact / Dutreil scheme.

Method and Data

For this study, the authors drew on previously unpublished data from the DGFiP concerning transfers of assets free of charge, and built on their earlier work on data matching, which was developed for recent studies evaluating reforms to capital taxation, the reduction in production taxes and the analysis of taxation on billionaires.

Partners

This project received support from the Court of Auditors