The Senate, with a right-wing majority, rejected on Monday the idea of a tax on “super profits” or “exceptional benefits” of large groups, despite a combined offensive by the left and the centrists.
All amendments to the draft amending budget for 2022 to try to introduce such taxation, already applied in Great Britain or Italy, have been rejected.
Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire had immediately reiterated his opposition to the “Pavlovian reflex of the tax”, arguing that large companies “must participate in the collective effort, returning the money directly to the French and not to the public”. treasury”.
The centrist group proposed to institute, for companies whose net profit would have been 20% higher in 2021 than the average of the three years 2017, 2018 and 2019, an “exceptional solidarity contribution on super profits” of the order of 20%.
“We were able to vote for an exceptional support (for companies, editor’s note), today it seems to me that we can expect an exceptional contribution,” declared Ms. Vermeillet.
“It is nothing shocking for us to have a tax limited in time,” said centrist Nathalie Goulet.
The amendment was rejected by 155 votes in favor and 177 against.
“May the emergence of social justice”
The PS group, for its part, has put on the table an exceptional tax of 25% on the super-profits of oil and gas companies, maritime transport companies, such as CMA CGM, and highway concessionaires.
According to the PS, this tax would raise some 4,000 million euros for Total, 925 million euros for Engie, 4,400 million euros for CMA-CGM and 875 million euros for highway concessionaires.
“It would restore tax equity among French companies,” according to Rémi Féraud.
For environmentalist Daniel Breuiller, “we need small taxes for small incomes and large taxes for large profits.”
“All these amendments have the sweet taste of measures that only have the appearance of social justice,” swept the leader of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, calling them “falsely effective and falsely fair.”
Source: BFM TV
