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Will the housing tax, definitively abolished for all main residences in 2023, already make a comeback? If the reintroduction of this local tax in the form of a “universal territorial contribution” is currently at the heart of discussions, the government assures us: there is no question of reversing the abolition of the housing tax. A reform which, as a reminder, was spread over six years: first for the 80% of least well-off tax households, who benefited from a reduction of 30% in 2018, 65% in 2019 and finally a total exemption in 2020, then for the remaining 20%, according to the same terms, between 2020 and 2023. A gradual extinction which allowed 25 million occupants of housing as their main residence to recover no less than 17.4 billion euros over the entire period concerned, according to statistics revealed Thursday November 21 by INSEE, in its social portrait of France (2024 edition).
The standard of living of the richest increased in 2023, not that of the French
But not all French people have benefited in the same proportions from this reform of the housing tax. The authors of the study emphasize “a clearly increasing effect in euros per tenth of a standard of living” of the abolition of this local tax. While the poorest 10% – the 1st decile – had to be content with an average gain of 80 euros (+0.7% standard of living) between 2018 and 2023, the saving is much higher for less modest households: 370 euros (+1.6%) for those in the 5th decile and above all 870 euros (+1.4%) for the wealthiest 10%i.e. households in the 10th decile. For INSEE experts, these differences are mainly explained by the fact that the 20% of the least well-off people already benefited, before 2018, from specific reductions on housing tax. Hence a much more limited gain for this category of the population.
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And obviously, it is in 2023, the year of the definitive abolition of the housing tax for the 20% of wealthiest households, that the gap has mainly widened. That year, they obtained an average gain of 300 euros. Consequence: while the average standard of living of the French has fallen by 50 euros last year (-0.2%), that of the wealthiest 30% increased by 170 euros and even 280 euros for the richest 10% of households, who saw their standard of living drop by 0.4 %.
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