The French standard VAT rate rose to 20% from 19.6% from 1 January 2014. In addition, the 7% reduced VAT rate increased to 10%. Many labour-intensive services such as domestic cleaning have hit the 10% rate in a series of increases since 2011. This came on top of the withdrawal in January 2013 of the domestic service tax subsidy. This is believed to have pushed the amount of cash in hand work for the sector from 35% to over 45% by 2016.
It is estimated that the French black market will increase to 11.4% of the economy this year based on the VAT rises. This compares to approximately 5% in the UK, but 21% and 19% in Italy and Spain respectively.
