The deputies rejected during the night from Friday to Saturday in committee a “revenue” section of the significantly revised 2024 draft budget, before the text, promised to pass through 49.3, was debated in the hemicycle on Tuesday.
If the debates were generally in good order – before discussions which promise to be more heated in the hemicycle – the 2024 finance bill (PLF) was rejected by 19 votes to 16.
The Renaissance group experienced a series of disappointments throughout the week. The various oppositions, and sometimes members of the majority, have many tax measures adopted against the opinion of the rapporteur.
One problem, one tax
A problem, a tax, we know this good old French recipe, said general rapporteur Jean-Ren Cazeneuve (Renaissance) on Friday, denouncing an axis of irresponsibility NUPES/RN, which did not vote for the text despite its victories .
LFI president of the Finance Committee Eric Coquerel called on the government not to cancel possible parliamentary victories in session by 49.3. Victories or defeats in committee are above all symbolic on the budgetary texts, because it is the initial text which arrives in the Chamber.
But the commission’s scenario could encourage Elisabeth Borne draw the inevitable 49.3 faster than expected, which allows the government to choose which amendments it keeps or rejects. It feels more like it (triggered) early, a Renaissance source estimated on Friday.
Amendments breaking the balance of the budget will not be accepted, Budget Minister Thomas Cazenave has already warned. On Friday, the deputies adopted, against the opinion of the rapporteur, a significant increase in taxes on financial transactions, or even a systematization of the tax on vacant housing, unless decided otherwise by a municipal council.
Earlier in the week, deputies had voted against the rapporteur’s opinion on a tax on superdividends, an idea already supported last year by the head of the MoDem group and member of the majority Jean-Paul Mattei, but withdrawn by the government via 49.3. This year Mr. Mattei returns to the charge with greater taxation of buybacks by large companies of their own shares.
Jean-Ren Cazeneuve and Horizons and MoDem deputies voted for amendments to extend to 2024 the contribution on the inframarginal income of energy companies, or a tax on excess profits. The socialist Christine Pirs Beaune had an amendment adopted for a tax credit for the rest charged to all residents in nursing homes, a subject which also marked the budgetary debates at the end of 2022.
On housing, one of the hot points of this budget, opposition deputies, MoDem and Renaissance voted to remove a government proposal, which intends to refocus the zero-rate loan system (PTZ) on stretched areas.
The debates in the Chamber will start late Tuesday afternoon.