It was a measure that drew significant criticism from the opposition. The Constitutional Council on Thursday censored the provisions of the 2024 budget intended to attract international sports federations like Fifa to France, judging that they ignored “the principle of equality” with regard to tax.
Carried by the Renaissance deputy Mathieu Lefèvre, the amendment rebutted Thursday by the Sages provided for exempting international sports federations from corporate tax and several contributions (CFE, CVAE) for “their missions of governance of sport or of promotion of the practice of sport”, remind the Sages in a press release.
This amendment also provided for an income tax exemption for employees of international sports federations domiciled in France for five years. Enough to create a tax haven for international sports organizations, the vast majority of which are domiciled in Switzerland where they benefit from an advantageous tax rate of 4.25%.
Fifa directly targeted
If this tax gift never mentioned the International Football Federation (Fifa) by name, it is indeed the main body which seemed concerned by this system. But by planning to grant these tax advantages “for the sole reason” that an international sports federation was “recognized by the International Olympic Committee” (IOC), “the legislator did not base its assessment on objective and rational criteria in according to the goal he has set for himself,” the Sages decide.
“Consequently, the Constitutional Council censures as disregarding the principle of equality before public offices article 31 of the law referred”, complicating a return of Fifa headquarters to Paris. Created in the French capital in 1904, Fifa moved to Zurich in 1932 and has located its main headquarters there since 2007.
Twelve legislative riders defeated
In their press release, the Wise Men also considered that the allocation of regulated savings (Livret A, LDDS, etc.) to the financing of the defense industry had no place in a finance law, without excluding for as much the adoption of such a measure in another text.
Eleven other “legislative riders” – provisions not relating to finance laws – were challenged by the Constitutional Council. Among these is article 208 of the budget “concerning the securing of the extraction of waste from the potash mines of Alsace and article 233 relating to the creation of education support centers”.
“The censorship of these various provisions does not prejudge the conformity of their content with other constitutional requirements. It is open to the legislator, if he deems it useful, to adopt such measures again” by a vector other than a finance law, conclude the Sages.