The Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday called on the presidential majority to show “responsibility” on the 2024 budget which will be examined in Parliament, a year after the heated debates provoked by a MoDem amendment on taxation “superdividends”.
Debt reduction and control of public finances are a political choice which is the marker of our majority, affirmed the minister during a Bercy press conference.
They must be a political choice, he insisted, even more so when the so-called responsible and government oppositions are incapable of proposing the slightest additional economy, and only propose additional spending amounting to tens of billions of euros, especially on fuel.
When the spirit of responsibility is lacking in the oppositions, the majority must demonstrate it for ten, launched Bruno Le Maire.
The minister is speaking in a context where the three components of the relative majority of the presidential camp in the Assembly (Renaissance, MoDem and Horizons) do not always speak with the same voice on tax issues, where the government has been advocating since 2017 reduction of the tax burden on households and businesses.
In 2022, MoDem MP Jean-Paul Mattei ignited the debates by presenting an amendment proposing to increase the taxation on superdividends from large companies from 30 to 35%.
On Tuesday, the deputy presented with his communist colleague Nicolas Sansu a report which proposes to introduce exceptional and explicitly temporary levies on the richest heritage on a European scale, in order to finance the ecological transition.
The report further suggests increasing the single lump sum levy on capital income (flat tax) by three points, or increasing the tax on life insurance transfers.
The fight for a minimum income tax on a European scale is a fair fight, commented Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday, emphasizing that the issue should not be addressed at the national level as part of the parliamentary debates on the bill. finances for 2024.