Tax credits do not benefit all French companies in the same way. According to the Council of compulsory levies, large French companies would have proportionally more tax reductions than other companies.
In any case, this is what reveals a study published Tuesday, July 4 by this institution attached to the Court of Auditors. At the request of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, chaired by the rebellious deputy Eric Coquerel, the CPO drew up an inventory of the differences in taxation between microenterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), medium-sized (ETI) and large companies. A study comparing the situations from 2007 to 2019.
Only 30% of SMEs benefit from a tax credit
At the heart of the study, the differences between the gross and effective tax percentages between these four types of companies. Or the difference between the percentage of profits that a company owes to the State according to the law, and the percentage actually applied.
These rates vary according to the tax reductions to which companies may be entitled depending on their situation. However, according to the CPO, large companies affected by corporation tax “all benefited in 2019 from at least one tax credit, compared to 61% of ETIs, 30% of SMEs and only 8% of microenterprises”.
Another data highlighted by the study: still in 2019, the largest companies represented “42% of tax credits […]while they were liable for only 38% of gross corporation tax” in total.
Conversely, SMEs and ETIs benefited from tax reductions “close to their contribution to corporation tax”, while micro-enterprises only had 9% tax credits despite a gross rate of 16% . The large companies therefore seem to be more favored than the others in terms of profits paid to the State.
Figures that could give food for thought to critics of the “superprofits” made by large companies since the health crisis.
Effective tax differentials are narrowing
The CPO study also warns of the amplitude of variation in the effective tax rate of large French companies, established between 2009 and 2022 at 12.4%. “Only Greece has experienced greater instability,” says the institution.
However, this study also specifies the evolution of these effective tax rates between 2007 and 2019. With good news: according to the authors of the study, quoted by the daily The echoes“the differences in taxation between categories of companies are clearly reduced compared to those observed in 2007”.
Despite everything, the Council of compulsory levies warns that this trend may not last. If the study is based on 2019 figures, “the continued decline in the normal corporate tax rate between 2020 and 2022 and the rise in interest rates in 2022 and 2023 more strongly reduce the implicit rate of ‘taxation of big business’, quote The echoes.
Factors that could thus recreate a gap between SMEs and large companies in favor of the latter.