PARIS (Reuters) – France can afford between 10 and 15 billion euros in additional corporate tax cuts without jeopardizing its strategy to restore public finances, the economy, finance minister said on Tuesday. Finance and Recovery, Bruno Le Maire.
Since the start of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term in 2017, the State has lowered corporate taxes by 26 billion euros, including 10 billion in taxes related to turnover or the number of employees, which companies generate. whether or not a profit.
These “production taxes” nevertheless remain significantly higher than in other European countries, and Bruno Le Maire has recently pleaded several times for a further reduction in these charges in order to make French companies more competitive.
“We can go further in tax cuts but in a quantum that I valued at 10-15 billion euros,” said the Minister of Economy and Finance during an economic conference on the presidential election in April.
Such a range would be “reasonable” if France wants to stick to its public finance recovery schedule and bring the public deficit below the threshold of 3% of gross domestic product in 2027, against a 2022 deficit estimated at 5%.
In a study on Tuesday, the institute of economic studies Rexecode estimates that France should reduce its production taxes by 30 billion euros to even return to the average of the European Union.
(Report Leigh Thomas; French version Jean-Stphane Brosse, told by Sophie Louet)