The reduction for professional expenses for retirees targeted by Medef

While François Bayrou’s government is looking for 50 billion euros in savings in 2025 and Bercy is consulting political forces this week, the boss of Medef has no shortage of ideas for cutting spending. Questioned by BFMTV this Thursday, January 9, Patrick Martin attacked the deduction for professional expenses that retirees enjoy on their pensions. And this, while they are… inactive.

“That a retiree benefits from a tax exemption for professional expenses”, “for 4 and a half billion euros per year”It is “unnatural” et « aberrant »estimated Patrick Martin. As a reminder, this tax reduction for professional expenses, from which all workers benefit, makes it possible to reduce declared income by 10%, up to 4,000 euros. Removing it would result in an increase in income tax for some, and cause others, who are non-taxable today, to become so.

A shocking proposal also defended by the president of the Retirement Orientation Council (COR), Gilbert Cet, who also said he was in favor, on Monday, of “the removal of the 10% tax reduction on pensions”.

Another avenue for savings mentioned by Patrick Martin: revisit the reduced rate of generalized social contribution (CSG) which applies to retirement pensions compared to that on salaries and property income. “We must question a certain number of systems: (…) retirees have a lower CSG rate, why? »he asked himself.

The CSG is one of the main personal taxes in France. It brought in, with the CRDS (contribution for the repayment of the social debt), 156 billion euros in 2023, much more than the income tax (97.1 billion), according to INSEE. And it turns out that the CSG rate on retirement and disability pensions is a maximum of 8.3% – with two reduced rates for low pensions -, compared to 9.2% for salaries or income from heritage. A differential which is not justified, according to Medef.

“I have the greatest respect for retirees, (…) but we cannot continue to place the burden on economic agents, primarily businesses, which are already the most taxed in the world”estimated Patrick Martin.

Concerning pension reform, which is the subject of discussions between the left and the government this week, the position of Medef remains firm: the employers’ union refuses any profound change, particularly on the question of the legal retirement age. The latter having gone from 62 years to 64 years in the 2023 reform. “We must not touch the performance of the reform” Who “ mainly due to the legal retirement age of 64”Patrick Martin insisted this Thursday.

A position very far from that defended by the left. Conversely, ecologists and communists, like Sophie Binet’s CGT, made the repeal of the reform a central objective. This Thursday, on TF1, the First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS), Olivier Faure, was pleased to note that the Bayrou government is not putting any « veto » to make changes to the reform. An observation made after a meeting in Bercy on Wednesday evening with the executive.

On the government side, the question of pension reform appears more and more crucial for the future of events. It is on this point that a non-censorship agreement on the budget with the Socialist Party could come into play. But time is running out before the general policy speech that François Bayrou is due to deliver on January 14.