Neuchâtel municipalities protest against the new tax cut planned for 2025 – rts.ch

A first reduction in personal tax took place this year in the canton of Neuchâtel. Last September, the Council of State announced that it wanted to reduce the tax burden again for 2025, by an additional 1%.

According to the daily Arcinfothe Neuchâtel municipalities reject this new tax cut. They made this known through a letter sent this week to the executive and the members of the Grand Council, while Parliament must soon vote on this tax reduction during the examination of the cantonal budget.

>> Read also: The Neuchâtel Council of State presents a 2025 budget benefiting 29.9 million

For Jean-Daniel Jeanneret, chief financier of La Chaux-de-Fonds and president of the Conference of Municipal Finance Directors, this reduction is excessive. “This would make 2% less taxes for the 2025 financial year, which is not negligible,” he underlines on Sunday in the 12:30 p.m. of the RTS.

“We were not at all involved in the discussions. It is true that the State presents a slightly profitable budget, but this is not the case for all the municipalities in the canton which will present, for the most part, deficit budgets”, continues the PLR ​​municipal councilor.

A “fragile” institutional dialogue

In its letter, the Association of Neuchâtel communes pleads for another mechanism which would allow only the cantonal share of the tax to be affected. “Our point is not to say that we should not lower taxes, but if the deputies want to do so, they must lower the taxes falling to the canton and not those which fall to the communes”, believes Jean- Daniel Jeanneret.

Through this missive, the municipalities express their frustration. According to Jean-Daniel Jeanneret, they are not taken into consideration enough in State decisions and this file reveals the “fragility” of the dialogue between the canton and them. “I hope everyone learns from this.”

The Neuchâtel Parliament will vote on the new tax cut on December 3 and 4.

Romain Bardet/again