Electricity taxes, car penalty, superprofits… What MPs changed in the 2025 budget in committee

Passed through the mill of the Finance Committee until this Saturday, the 2025 budget is unrecognizable compared to the initial version. The deputies adopted nearly 200 amendments which profoundly modified the finance bill. A quarter of the 41 articles reviewed were deleted or rejected. Without consequence at this stage because the deputies will start again on Monday from the government’s initial copy for the debate within the hemicycle of the National Assembly this time.

But the executive knows what to expect. “The finance bill was rejected in the Finance Committee», deplores Laurent Saint-Martin, Minister of Budget and Public Accounts who denounces the increase in taxation of 50 billion euros. “This tax draconian would affect all French people, their life savings, as well as our family SMEs. This increase is irresponsible. The urgency is not to increase taxes on the French by 50 billion but to sharply curb our public spending.» While waiting for the final vote in session next week, here are the main changes to remember.

Good news for your electricity bill. The deputies of the Finance Committee have canceled a government project which plans to tax electricity at a higher level than the period before the energy crisis and is to increase state revenues by three billion euros. Bercy, which thus wants to put an end to the price shield put in place during the inflationary crisis, ultimately promises a 9% reduction in the price “for households at the regulated sales rate (TRV) or contracts indexed to this rate”, due to the reduction in the cost of energy.

VAT at 20% for gas boilers removed

Other good news for households: the Finance Committee has also deleted the article providing for excluding gas boilers from the scope of VAT reduced to 5.5% or 10%, to tax them at the full rate of 20%. It is RN, LR and Macronist elected officials who are at the origin of this change.

The deputies also deleted, in committee, an article planning to increase the automobile penalty for gasoline and diesel vehicles, at the initiative of the right, and with the support of the RN. This strengthening of the penalty, which would affect “less than 6% of purchases» according to Bercy, which expects 500 million euros in savings next year, had caused an outcry in the automobile industry which sees it as a “disguised tax”.

For the better off, it’s probably a grimace soup. The Finance Committee has certainly approved the tax on high incomes, intended to rebalance public finances. But the common base of the right and the center could not prevent this tax from being unlimited while the government envisaged it for only three years.

Local authorities, on the other hand, can breathe a little. Pending the final vote on the 2025 budget next week, the Finance Committee rejected the articles aimed at freezing or reducing their revenues. On the contrary, the deputies granted them an extension of 500 million euros.

On the other hand, if there is one tax that has not changed one iota, it is that on the “superprofits” of large companies which achieve more than 750 million euros in turnover. Defended by La France Insoumise, this “exceptional contribution”, which could bring in 15 billion euros according to LFI, was adopted by the Finance Committee.