The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, announced on Friday a tax exemption measure in favor of cattle breeders, who have seen their taxes increase due to the increase in the value of their livestock.
In the 2024 budget, an exceptional measure to support French livestock farming will take the form of a provision of 150 euros per cow up to 15,000 euros per farm, or one hundred cows, in order to reduce tax on lifters which results from the increase in the value of their stock, indicated Mr. Le Maire in an interview with the regional daily La Montagne.
This is a strong demand from the breeding world. In these times of budgetary scarcity we still wanted to access it, added the man who was Minister of Agriculture from 2009 to 2012, before a visit on Friday to the Cournon-d’Auvergne Livestock Summit. Bercy assesses the cost of the measure several tens of millions of euros.
This tax exemption was demanded by the FNSEA, the majority agricultural union which emphasizes that with inflation, the book value of cows increases, which artificially inflates the taxable profit of operators. From an accounting standpoint, cows are fixed stock.
This measure is also seen as a means of combating the decline in livestock numbers. Without tax relief, breeders could be tempted to sell a few cows to reduce their tax, which risks resulting in a loss of production capacitypointed out the president of the FNSEA Arnaud Rousseau on Wednesday during a press conference.