Die Entwicklung integrierter familienunterstützender - Qualiflex.lu

France - 3. Recent measures, new schemes
the advantage in that it simplifies bureaucratic procedures and reduces the
employers’ costs. They purchase the cheques from their local bank.
In exchange, households and families can benefit form generous tax deductions:
they may deduct 50 per cent of the real costs from their income
tax, up to a limit of 6,000 Euros per year.
As a result there has been over the last decade a dramatic increase in the
number of jobs in the service sector and in the number of households relying
on this CESU. 9
Research (Windebank, 2007) has demonstrated that in terms of the
amount of relief gained by the women who purchase paid domestic services
the impact is marginal and “such schemes are shown to exacerbate the problem
of the unequal gender division of domestic labour. This is because they
reinforce the gender stereotyping surrounding domestic work by transferring
it from more well-off to less well-off women. Consequently, the question
of the redistribution of domestic tasks between men and women is sidestepped”.
3.6 The establishment of the “family tax credit”
(Crédit d’impôt famille, CIF) for enterprises
Employers partly fund through their social contributions (5% of the wages)
family allowances and creation and running of public childcare facilities. But
over the last decade they have also been encouraged by successive governments
to develop family-friendly initiatives. In exchange they have been
provided with financial incentives.
One recent measure illustrates this new trend: Established since 2004
(Borloo Law), the Family tax credit (Crédit d’impôt famille, CIF) is a financial
incentive provided to companies to encourage them to develop familyfriendly
initiatives for their employees (including the pre-paid CESU). The
CIF stipulates that 25 per cent of related expenses are deductible from taxes
paid by the company up to a ceiling of 500,000 Euros per year and per
company (Finance Law of 2004, art. 98). Within this regulatory framework,
4 categories of expenses are eligible:
� expenses linked to training programmes for employees on parental leave
� supplements paid to employees on maternity or paternity leave or on
child-sick leave
� creation of their own crèches or contribution to the running of crèches with
places reserved for the employees’ children under three years of age.
� getting employees a refund on expenses related to exceptional childcare
costs pertaining to unpredictable professional obligation outside the normal
work schedules.
� pre-paid CESU
9 See http://195.154.196.81/siteXerfi/spot/pdf/6SME14.pdf and Windebank, 2007.
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