Unmarried may get more rights

PEOPLE living together in informal couples should be able to make joint tax declarations the same as married or pacsed people, French notaires have suggested.

At their annual conference, held in Bordeaux this year, notaires recommended that there should be an official status for income tax and wealth tax for concubins – couples who live together but have no formal relationship.

They would be recognised as living in a foyer fiscal or taxable household. Their ideas go to the government each year and may form the basis of new laws. Another proposal is to allow people such as friends or siblings who share a home to have a legal status similar to a pacs – in a bid to overcome inheritance problems.

The conference’s keynote speaker, Jean-François Sagaut, said: “With lifespans getting longer there are going to be more and more set-ups where people are living in a state of dependence and vulnerability and there is no suitable solution for a number of situations as things stand.”

The notaires also proposed that when pacsed people separated they should be obliged to share out property according to who owns what, like married people do. However, they decided not to suggest pacs partners should have a right to widow/er’s pensions (though this is supported by anti-discrimination body the Halde on gay rights grounds) or automatic inheritance rights.

Mr Sagaut said the reasoning was they “did not want to make the pacs into a marriage and, secondly, we should keep the three ways of living together – pacte civil de solidarité, marriage and concubinage – distinct.”