The days pass and, little by little, the details of the savings plan of the French government, led by the conservative Michel Barnier, are becoming clearer. This Thursday, the Minister of the Budget (the equivalent of the head of the Treasury in Spain), Laurent Saint-Martin (macronist) announced it in an interview on public television France 2 the profile of the “lucky French people” who will make this “exceptional contribution” with the tax on large fortunes. Thus, the rate will be applied to income taxed per year “greater than 500,000 euros”, which means, according to the minister, around 65,000 people, or 0.3% of the 20 million French taxpayers who pay income tax.
This rate will be applied to the entire tax household, that is to say not to the individual, the minister’s team indicated to the public agency. France Press.
“We can legitimately ask the richest taxpayers of this country to participate on an exceptional and temporary basis in this recovery effort,” Saint-Martin said in the interview. Telematin. Already in mid-June, several tax experts were recommending that the only way for France to emerge from bankruptcy was to increase taxes.
The minister reiterated that this serves to “show that the growth policy, the investment policy, has borne fruit since 2017, which means that we have reduced unemployment, that we have opened more factories than we “We have closed some, it must continue.”
Generally speaking, and despite the poor economic situation the country is going through, employment has remained resilient. In the second quarter of this year, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), the unemployment rate decreased by 0.2% to 2.3 million people. This represents a decrease of 40,000 people compared to the first three months of the year and places the unemployment rate in France at 7.3%.
Concerning growth, the French government forecasts GDP expansion of 1.1% in 2025 after 1.1% forecast in 2024, compared to 0.7% for the OECD. On the other hand, average inflation would be, they say, 1.8%, compared to 2.1% with which they expect to end the year.
Asked what mechanism the Executive would use to address this new tax rate, the minister was unable to specify how he would implement it. “We will see what mechanism we adopt,” he said. However, he recalled that this type of temporary measures had already been adopted “during the financial crisis of 2008”.
Little is known about this French tax project in terms of temporary taxes. The only thing we know is what was published by local French media. In The Parisian They assure that Barnier and his economic team “are considering tripling” the contribution of the big fortunes to raise 3 billion euros. On the other hand, the tax rate for companies that earn more than 1 billion dollars per year will increase from 25% to 30%, with which they intend to obtain up to 8 billion dollars for the public coffers. Finally, an increase of 3 billion in the electricity tax and an additional 3 billion for energy companies and share buybacks are also expected.
“All large companies, within their possibilities, must contribute at a strategic moment for public finances,” declared the Budget official.
As far as he can tell elEconomista.es this week, through official sources, is that the draft budget that Barnier will present next week to the National Assembly (Lower House) proposes a saving of 60 billion, of which 40 thousand will come from expenditure, while the 20 The remaining billion will come from these temporary “taxes”.
All this in a context where the deficit will get out of control this year above 6% of GDP and they hope that this budgetary effort will manage to reduce it to 5% next year. But this is not enough, and that is why they postponed their deficit target to 3% of GDP for 2029, despite the fact that Brussels set a deadline until 2027.
On the spending side, the vast majority will come from the central administration, but also from Social Security and local administrations. In this aspect, elEconomista.es learned that the Government was going to postpone the increase in pensions from January 1 to July 1, 2025. According to experts, this measure will save up to 4 billion euros, of which 3 billion would go into state coffers.
On the other hand, health spending (which in France depends on Social Security) will also be reduced from 3.2% of GDP this year to 2.8% next year.
