The Constitutional Council censored, Thursday December 28, the provisions of the 2024 budget intended to attract international sports federations, such as FIFA, to France, ruling that they ignored “the principle of equality” before the tax.
Supported by Renaissance MP Mathieu Lefèvre, the amendment rebutted on Thursday provided for the exemption of international sports federations from corporate tax and several contributions (CFE, CVAE) for “their missions of governing sport or promoting the practice of sport”reminds the Council in a press release.
This amendment also promised an income tax exemption for employees of international sports federations domiciled in France for five years. If the amendment 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 his assessment on objective and rational criteria based on the goal he proposed”decide the wise men.
A complicated return from FIFA headquarters to Paris
“Consequently, the Constitutional Council censures article 31 of the referred law as violating the principle of equality before public offices”, 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.
In their press release, the judges also considered that the allocation of regulated savings (Livret A, Sustainable and Solidarity Development Booklet, etc.) to the financing of the defense industry had no place in a law of finances, without however excluding the adoption of such a measure in another text.
Eleven others “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 potash mines in Alsace” and section 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, they conclude.