A vote which illustrates all the difficulties that the government will encounter in the National Assembly. On the evening of Tuesday, October 22, the deputies approved the new tax contribution from high-income households proposed by the executive in its 2025 draft budget, but with an expanded base compared to the executive’s proposal, and without limit of time. The text thus amended was adopted with mainly the votes of the left and the RN, the government coalition in the Assembly being divided between votes for, against and abstentions.
This provision, expected to bring in 2 billion euros in 2025, amounts to establishing a minimum tax rate of 20% for households declaring more than 250,000 euros of annual income for a single person, and 500,000 euros for a single person. couple.
The government wanted to introduce it in an “exceptional” manner for three years, but the National Assembly adopted amendments tabled by the left and by the MoDem, a member of the government coalition, to remove this time limit. On this point, the RN abstained. “You ask everyone to make an effort […] in a lasting manner. And the only ones to whom you say ‘don’t worry, it’s exceptional’ are those who have more than enough to live on”, asserted the president of the Finance Committee, the rebellious Eric Coquerel at the address of the government.
“Totally contradictory signals”
For the Minister of the Budget, Laurent Saint-Martin, “by not knowing how to commit over time to exceptional measures which will enable us to straighten out our accounts”, we risk “sending totally contradictory signals”. Taxpayers must “know […] that there will be an end” to such measures, to have “visibility”, he pleaded.
If 62,500 households theoretically fell within the scope of the new measure, a preliminary study published on the website of the Ministry of the Budget estimated that 24,300 households would actually be liable.
Unconvinced by the government’s drafting, the general rapporteur of the budget, the centrist Charles de Courson (Liot) had an amendment adopted quite widely aimed at limiting the possibility for very well-off taxpayers to resort to tax advantages or credits. taxes to reduce the bill.
“A form of permanent fiscal revenge ideology”
For Macronist MP Mathieu Lefèvre, “the government’s text seemed balanced, it was unbalanced by a form of ideology of permanent fiscal revenge”. “I hope,” he added, “that the government will not retain this idea of sustainability” in the final version of the text, which it will likely have adopted via article 49.3 of the Constitution.
“I think that Michel Barnier has already planned to trigger 49.3, and that he is making fun of the world,” commented Jean-Philippe Tanguy (RN), regretting that the government “does not negotiate anything” and “does not supported no amendment from anywhere in the opposition.”