The right-wing opposition-dominated Senate on Saturday evening rejected superprofit taxation by rejecting amendments from the left and centrists that planned to tax the windfall profits of big corporations against government advice.
The senators refused an amendment from the left by 181 votes against 97 and another presented by the centrists on a tighter result of 181 votes against 152 during the examination in first reading of the finance bill for 2023.
The left has relaunched the debate on this controversial subject in the Senate, after the decision of the Constitutional Council which buried its hopes of obtaining a referendum on the taxation of superprofits.
During the debate, the communist senator Eric Bocquet denounced a government which refuses to seek superprofits.
Refusing this exceptional contribution is a bad message sent to the French, said, for his part, the senator of the centrist group Bernard Delcros.
In his response, the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal justified his rejection, ensuring that this measure would also overtax companies that have had nothing to do with the current situation of soaring energy prices.
The Senate had already rejected this summer the idea of a tax on the superprofits or exceptional profits of large groups, after another combined offensive by the left and the centrists.
The presidential majority, after cracks appeared within it on the question, seems to have come over to the position of the government, for which the solution has been found: it is the agreement concluded on September 30 between Member States of the European Union.
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The European Commission then indicated that it wanted to claim a temporary solidarity contribution from the producers and distributors of gas, coal and oil who are making massive profits thanks to the surge in prices following the war in Ukraine.
It must be set at 33% of the share of the superprofits of 2022, i.e. profits more than 20% higher than the average for the years 2019-21, while taking into account the measures taken by the States already taxing these profits. .
France is transposing this European agreement into its 2023 budget which, according to Mr. Attal, should bring in 11 billion euros for the State.
The Commission has taken care not to use the word tax because any new tax provision at European level would have required the unanimity of the Twenty-Seven, a more complicated procedure and risks being adopted by a qualified majority.