This discreet increase will, however, go unnoticed.
It’s a little bomb that the French would have done without. If Michel Barnier promised not to increase taxes for the vast majority of households, the Prime Minister nevertheless plans to levy the entire population using another lever: that of taxes. Not all obviously, but through one, unknown to the general public.
For months, the rise in the price of electricity has seemed unstoppable. +38% between January 2022 and February 2024: the pill had difficulty being swallowed by households. But the former government had promised: that time is over and the bill will go down! By 10%! At least, that was the initial announcement. In the meantime, things have changed. And if the bill should decrease, it will hide a trick that few households will pay attention to.
The electricity bill is broken down into several parts: the pure price of electricity, costs linked to the electricity network and its maintenance, as well as a tax collected by the State. This, the TICFE (or CSPE, its former name), no longer represented almost nothing on the total to be paid: it had been lowered to 1€/MwH to compensate for the increase in the cost of production and transmission of electricity. electricity. The latter having now decreased, the State wants to fill its coffers again. Raised to €21/MwH, it was to increase to €32/MwH on 1er February, its level before the start of the war in Ukraine. But Michel Barnier wants to go much further.
According to Les Echosthe Prime Minister wants to increase the cost of this tax to 40 or 42€/MwH in 2025 in order to obtain additional revenue for the state budget. A dizzying increase. For example, for an apartment of 60m2 (consumption of 4800KwH/year), the annual amount of the TICFE will increase from 120 to 230 euros. For a house of 100m² (10,000KwH/year), this will increase from 250 to 480 euros annually. These are the average consumption levels established by Engie depending on the types of housing.
But will this increase really hurt the wallet? A priori, no. Most households should not feel the effects of this tax increase. In fact, the government says that the pure cost of electricity will decrease so much from January that, despite the increase in the tax, the bill will still fall. But certainly not 10% as initially promised. Unless Parliament opposes this drastic increase…