As the 2025 Budget bill arrives next week in the Council of Ministers, the government lifts the veil on the measures proposed to achieve 20 billion in additional revenue.
We now don’t know a little more. While the finance bill will be presented to the Council of Ministers next week, Matignon and Bercy are finalizing the final decisions. Faced with the deterioration of public accounts, the government must find 20 billion euros in new revenue – for a total effort of 60 billion euros – in order to reduce the deficit to 5% in 2025. It is gradually lifting the veil on its project of taxation ” temporary “ “big companies” and “richest households”.
As for the exceptional contribution of the wealthiest, the measure concerned 0.3% of taxpayers, reported Laurent Saint Martin, the Minister of the Budget, Thursday October 3 on RTL. His office then indicated that 65,000 households will be affected, out of a total of nearly 41 million. The threshold used to be part of these high fortunes is an annual income of 500,000 for a single person without children.
Some gray areas remain on the concrete terms of this surcharge but according to Les Echos, it would be a minimum level of taxation of these high incomes. The objective: to avoid recourse to various tax relief measures and loopholes which allow these very wealthy people to benefit, sometimes, from a lower tax rate than certain less well-off households. The economic daily reports that this minimum figure would be between 15% and 25%. But nothing is set in stone yet. This rate could change depending on the parliamentary debates on the finance bill. Bercy is counting on 2 to 3 billion in revenue. On the other hand, the possibility of non-indexation of the upper income tax brackets to inflation is ruled out.
Corporate tax increased
Still, the bulk of the effort will fall on the shoulders of businesses. The main measure concerns companies with turnover of more than one billion euros in France. There are 300 of them according to the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier. A figure that can leave you speechless. Indeed, in 2022, INSEE counted 352 companies with a turnover of more than 1.5 billion.
So, Companies exceeding this threshold of one billion euros in turnover will be subject to a 5-point surcharge on corporate tax (IS). Reduced to a rate of 25% by Emmanuel Macron, it would rise to 30% next year. For those with a turnover of more than 3 billion euros, it will reach 35.25%. The rates are expected to decrease in 2026, to 27.5% for the former and 30% for the latter. The return to normal is announced for 2027. Bercy hopes to bring 8 billion euros into the coffers in 2025 with this measure.
The IS surtax is a lever that has been used several times in recent years. In 2011, the Fillon government applied a 5% surcharge for companies with a turnover of more than 250 million euros. Scheduled for one year, it was renewed in 2012 by the Socialists, back in power, before the latter decided to double it to 11% in 2013.
Champion of supply-side policy, Emmanuel Macron also decided on a corporate tax surcharge in 2017. This time, the justification was different. It was not a question of filling the deficit, but of making large groups bear half of the 10 billion euros in debt caused by the cancellation of a 3% tax on dividends, put in place under François Hollande. but rejected by the Constitutional Council. This measure then brought in 5 billion euros.
5 billion more to find
Several sectoral taxes are also planned. A contribution from shipowners will thus see the light of day. It should bring in a billion euros. Conversely, the “tonnage tax”, a tax loophole which allows the maritime sector not to pay tax on profits, should not be modified. The tax on plane tickets will be increased by 1 billion euros, a threefold increase. Airline groups have threatened to pass on this increase in ticket prices. The government plans to recover an additional 500 million euros with other measures targeting polluting transport.
There are still a few unknowns. Taken together, all these measures could bring in up to 13.5 billion, far from the expected 20 billion. According to the Echoes, the government considers that the non-removal of the contribution on business added value (CVAE) – which was to disappear in 2024 – is one of these exceptional measures. But with this additional saving of around 1.4 billion euros, there are still 5 billion to be collected.
Especially since the government has indicated that it excludes any reform of the Dutreil pact, a tax advantage put in place to encourage the transfer of businesses. The employers feared that Michel Barnier’s new chief of staff, who had noted certain abuses in the mechanism during his time at the tax office, would unravel the law. On the capital income side, the increase in the single flat-rate levy (PFU), the famous flat-tax, from 30% to 33% has also been abandoned. A government salt-and-pepper potion for employers.
Read also: Flat-tax, ISF, VAT, income tax… What are the hypotheses considered by Michel Barnier?
