“When we talk, for example, about returning to the curve of reducing social charges, it is SMEs which will be the first to be impacted,” warned the boss of the CPME, François Asselin, this Tuesday.
The tone is rising between small businesses and the government. While the 2025 budget must be presented at the end of the week, the first ideas are circulating widely in the press. And, unsurprisingly, give rise to initial concerns. Small businesses, therefore, do not hide their apprehension, fearing of becoming the turkeys of the joke. And this, despite the executive’s attempts to reassure them.
Until now, the government has said it wants to limit increases in compulsory levies to very large French companies to replenish state coffers. This does not mean that small businesses will be spared from the finance bill: certain measures, such as a reduction in apprenticeships or a reflection on “our cost-reduction system” should also affect these structures, with significant consequences: “If these measures were to be confirmed, for SMEs, certainly taxes would not increase in the semantic sense of the term, but the cost of labor would increase and several sectors would be taxed more”worried the CPME, in a press release on Monday.
Speaking to Franceinfo on Tuesday, François Asselin said he was unconvinced by the government’s options on these various issues, even seeing it as a “a somewhat disguised manner […]insidious, to broaden the base to find budgetary margins” on the backs of small structures. “I don’t want to play the game of the big guys against the little guys […]but when we talk, for example, about returning to the curve of reducing social charges, it is SMEs who will be the first to be impacted. When we want to return to measures to support apprenticeships, it is SMEs that will be most impacted”since “70% of apprentices are in SMEs”he said.
The boss of small business owners therefore called for the wrong target, and to prioritize, above all, reducing the state’s lifestyle. Otherwise, the companies concerned risk responding to these tax measures limiting their room for maneuver with job cuts or even closures. Many structures presenting a strong “labor rate”in the cleaning, personal service or security sectors, therefore risk not being able to increase their prices, despite increasing costs. “This means job destruction”warned the president of the CPME. “This concerns thousands and thousands of employees”he then insisted.
“No taboo”
The executive’s response was quick. Invited on the same radio a few hours later, the Minister of Public Accounts defended the reflection on the reduction of charges, which had “negative effects, notably the low-wage trap”. For the member of the government, it is therefore necessary “redraw” this device, to have “more incentives to increase wages”.
More broadly, Laurent Saint-Martin recalled the urgent need to get the accounts straight as quickly as possible. “Can we also say to ourselves […] that while unemployment has fallen in our country, that companies have massively resorted to apprenticeships, that we can not eliminate apprenticeship assistance, but redefine the targeting, the perimeters?he pretended to wonder. The executive therefore intends to move forward without “taboo”in the construction of the budget, to determine “where public money is most useful”.
“We need, for our entrepreneurs, to straighten out our public accounts”insisted the minister, calling for a distinction to be made between the increased levies targeting large businesses, on the one hand, and the removal of “tariff shields” put in place against energy or inflation, as well as employment aid, on the other hand. “It is precisely so that the State can be able to properly support these companies that we need to make this collective effort”he concluded.
It remains to be seen whether the minister’s words will reassure small entrepreneurs, while the alerts are increasing. In Les Échos, the boss of the U2P, Michel Picon, called for “fundamental reforms, not picking the pockets of small businesses by recovering a few billion from social security contribution exemptions”. Same worried tone from the Independents Union: “Increase in the minimum wage, reform of reductions in charges on low wages and extension of the sharing of added value to VSEs are all forms of disguised taxes on our businesses”reacted the general secretary of the SDI, shortly after the Prime Minister’s general policy speech.
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