One tax increase can hide another. After announcing an increase in the tax on electricity, in the 2025 draft budget presented by the government Thursday eveningthe Minister of Ecological Transition and Energy Agnès Pannier-Runacher announced this Friday that the government would propose “an increase in taxes on gas”. This increase will pass by means of an amendment to the finance billshe clarified.
Without providing further details, the minister thus gave, during a press briefing, clarification to the measure of taxation of “fossil fuels” mentioned Thursday evening in the press kit for the draft budget. The government’s plan to increase taxes on gas appears implicitly in the file, under the heading “measures by amendment (airline tickets, fossil fuels)”. Together, these measures should bring 1.5 billion euros to the state budget, including 1 billion for the increase in taxes on plane tickets.
Provide “consistent price signals between carbon solutions and carbon-free solutions”
“The challenge is also to work on brown niches through the increase in the automobile penalty, through the elimination of the reduced VAT rate of 5.5% on the installation of fossil fuel boilers and finally through government amendment, through an increase in taxation on plane tickets and gas”she said. “It is important to provide consistent price signals between carbon solutions and carbon-free solutions,” she justified regarding these measures.
“It is especially important to prevent public policies and public money from making carbon solutions less expensive than carbon-free solutions”added Agnès Pannier-Runacher, referring in particular to the increase in taxation of electricity, essentially decarbonized in France due to the importance of nuclear power.
The previous government already doubled the excise on gas on January 1, 2024, one of the taxes paid by gas suppliers and passed on to consumers, which at the time materialized the end of the price shield on gas.
The regulated electricity price will increase by 9%
The government plans in its finance bill presented Thursday to increase electricity taxation to a level that allows of “guarantee the consumer a 9% reduction in the regulated sales price in 2025 from February 1”. The government is counting on the drop in electricity costs on the markets to absorb the increase in the electricity tax, which will mark the exit from the tariff shield put in place during the energy crisis from the end of 2021 to contain bills of the French.
This increase in taxation on electricity gives rise to concerns of stakeholders in the energy transition, who see it as a negative signal for the acceleration of the electrification of uses (electric cars, electric heating), going against France’s objectives to move away from fossil fuels.
Related News :