You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (December 2009) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,170 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Contributions directes]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Contributions directes}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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The contributions directes were a system of four taxes, also known as the quatre vieilles, set up under the French Revolution. They were all direct taxes, willingly voted into existence by vote of the deputies, by contrast with the Ancien Régime, which mainly relied on indirect taxes.

Three of them were set up in 1790 by the National Constituent Assembly:

• the contribution foncière, on all lands ;
• the contribution mobilière, on all income not derived from commerce or 'land' (with the latter including rent and industry)
• the patente, which taxed the professions according to their external signs

The fourth, the impôt sur les portes et fenêtres (comparable to the British window tax) was set up in 1798 by the French Directory. This one was not called a contribution, and was progressive.

Until the First French Empire, these for direct taxes raised enough for the state budget, but the Napoleonic Wars led to the re-establishment of indirect taxation.