The examination of the 2024 budget in committee continues to be complicated for the presidential camp, which saw amendments from the opposition and its ally the MoDem adopted against the advice of the general rapporteur, in particular to prevent refocusing the loan rate zero on tense areas.
The votes in the Finance Committee have an especially symbolic value since it is the initial text of the finance bill (PLF) which will be debated on Tuesday in the Chamber. But the disappointments of the Macronists in committee could encourage the government to quickly trigger the constitutional army of 49.3, in order to have the text adopted without a vote, by excluding the amendments of its choice.
This would push for a faster 49.3
We already have around ten palms (undone). Pragmatically, this would push for a faster 49.3, agrees a Macronist parliamentary source, in an Assembly without an absolute majority.
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The PTZ, a new source of debate in committee
On Thursday, amendments from the oppositions but also from MoDem and Renaissance deputies deleted a measure from the budget, which refocuses the zero-rate loan system (PTZ) on stretched areas. This will further prevent a certain number of people who wish to acquire housing, warned Vronique Louwagie (LR).
There is a misunderstanding, said the general rapporteur Jean-Ren Cazeneuve (Renaissance), assuring that the PTZ would ultimately affect 6 million additional beneficiaries, thanks to amendments to the budget. We are not touching the PTZ for social housing (nor) on the old one, continued the deputy, claiming on the other hand the fact of tightening the system, for new housing, in tense areas such as large cities, in particular due to of the price of land. This is a substantial saving in this budget, also defended Mathieu Lefvre (Renaissance).
But MPs opposed to the measure see it as an injustice for rural areas, and a risk for a housing market in crisis. This is how we create this feeling of abandonment, according to Christine Pirs Beaune (PS).
Greater taxation of buybacks by large companies of their own shares?
Another MoDem amendment divided the majority. The centrist group is calling for greater taxation of large companies’ buybacks of their own shares. The MoDem notes that these operations have increased considerably and largely serve short-term objectives: knowing how to remunerate shareholders in addition to the payment of dividends, support the stock market price or even increase earnings per share. This would concern large listed companies generating a billion euros in turnover, underlined the head of MoDem deputies Jean-Paul Mattei, member of the presidential majority.
Jean-Ren Cazeneuve (Renaissance) opposed this, stressing that the repurchase of shares is not a reprehensible practice. What is important to us is sharing value. I hope that the government will come to the Chamber with a proposal for limited taxation on companies that do not do this sharing of value, he said.
Eric Coquerel, LFI president of the commission, criticized the government for trying to reduce parliamentary initiatives to nothing. In the evening, the deputies adopted identical amendments from Jean-Ren Cazeneuve and Horizons and MoDem deputies, in order to extend into 2024 the contribution on the inframarginal rent of energy companies, i.e. a tax on excess profits, in particular due to the high volatility of electricity prices.
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