The Socialist president told business leaders last week that reform must reduce the tax load on companies and improve conditions for investment.

The government is considering lowering the corporate tax rate, which is currently among the highest in Europe at 33.3 percent of profits, and widening the tax base, one source said.

The overhaul fits with Hollande's new embrace of a supply-side economics and move away from tax increases.

The unpopular president offered earlier this month to phase out 30 billion euros (24 billion pounds) in charges companies pay to finance family benefits, in exchange for meeting hiring targets.

Ministers, deputies, unions and employers' groups will try to deliver by June proposals to simplify the tax system, which critics say is clogged with hundreds of ineffective taxes.

"The aim is to have something in the presidential mandate (running until 2017), with the first concrete measures starting in the 2015 budget bill," Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told journalists as he left the meeting.

Last week Moscovici tied the timing of tax cuts to how quickly France made planned budget savings and whether economic growth held up.

Budget Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the government was considering scrapping dozens of minor taxes that generate little revenue. "Some cost more than they bring in," he said after the talks on Wednesday.

(Reporting By Emmanuel Jarry and Julien Ponthus; Writing by Nicholas Vinocur and Leigh Thomas; Editing by Andrew Roche)