The Elysée, contacted by The worlddid not rush to comment on the decision of the Constitutional Council to censor, Thursday December 28, the tax provisions of the 2024 budget intended to attract international sports federations recognized by the International Olympic Committee to France.
Under the “principle of equality” before public charges, the constitutional judges challenged these provisions, tailor-made for the powerful and extremely wealthy Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), which has an annex at the Hôtel de la Marine, Place de la Concorde, in Paris, since June 2021. These measures, which were the subject of an unfavorable advisory opinion from the Council of State in the fall, provided for exemption from corporate tax and several contributions (business property tax , contribution on the added value of companies) these federations. The amendment was also to exempt employees of federations domiciled in France from income tax for five years.
Although these provisions only concerned non-commercial activities, they were the subject of three appeals by parliamentarians before the Constitutional Council. “I am delighted with this decision which is consistent with the Constitution and predictable. I don’t understand how we could insert this unconstitutional amendment [déposé par les députés Renaissance, en octobre], jubilant senator (Les Républicains, Paris) Francis Szpiner. Even a decent public law student would have told the government, “Don’t do it.” »
“It was a disproportionate tax advantage and totally unfair vis-à-vis, in particular, amateur sport, which experiences the daily administrative and financial hassleestimates the MP (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, Hauts-de-Seine), Sabrina Sebaihi. There was no justification for rolling out the red carpet at FIFA. »
Pressure on the executive
A few months before the Olympic Games, this “tax gift” offered to FIFA by the executive stemmed from Emmanuel Macron’s desire to repatriate part of its activities to Paris, where the body was founded in 1904. As early as December 2018, in the midst of the “yellow vest” crisis, he negotiated with FIFA President Gianni Infantino a partial move for the federation, which has been headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, since 1932.
By virtue of a tax ruling, negotiated at the end of 2021 with Bercy, and the granting of posted worker status, employees of the Paris office coming from Zurich did not pay their social security contributions in France, and kept their social protection in Switzerland for two years. The annex, which is not subject to corporate tax since its inauguration by Mr. Macron in 2021, currently houses around twenty employees, notably responsible for the Forward development program and questions of governance and cooperation with African federations.
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