Simplify drug taxes, French Senate tells govt

The French Senate's health task force has published a report calling for a reform of the fiscal aspects of the country's drug sector. It describes the current system as lacking in transparency and clarity as well as damaging to the country by providing disincentives to inward pharmaceutical investment.

The centrist Senator for the Val de Marne departement, Jean-Jacques Jegou (UDF), who acted as the rapporteur for the report, said the drug industry must not be the "adjustable variable" used to try to plug the deficit in France's social security budget. Sen Jegou noted that drug manufacturers and distributors are hit with the burden, financial and administrative, of no fewer than 13 separate taxes, generating over 1.0 billion euros ($1.59 billion) a year.

According to a report in the financial newspaper, Les Echos, the basic proposal of the task force is for existing taxes to be streamlined and to avoid changing them every year, to deal with short-term national budgetary shortfalls.