senators brush aside the increase in the tax on electricity, but increase that on gas

© Illustration Capital/Freepik

Just like the National Assembly, he says no. The Senate, with a right-wing majority, voted on the night of November 26 to 27, an amendment to the finance bill for 2025 from the general budget rapporteur, Jean-François Husson, which planned to eliminate the increase in taxes on electricity. As a reminder, the government planned to raise the level of the domestic tax on final electricity consumption (TICFE) beyond its pre-energy crisis threshold, to 32 euros per megawatt hour.

The executive intended to apply this increase on February 1, 2025, when calculating the regulated sales tariffs (TRV) for electricity, established by the Energy Regulatory Commission, to make it painless. Indeed, wholesale electricity prices having decreased considerably since the peak in summer 2022, TRVs will drop considerably next winter, by around 9%. But, with the elimination, by the senators of the increase in taxation planned by the government, the reduction in TRV should in reality reach 25%, predicts the communist senator Fabien Gay, who voted in favor of this elimination of tax which was to more than 3 billion euros to the State.

In return, the senators voted… another tax increase, this time on gas, still at the initiative of Jean-François Husson. Costing around 1 billion euros for the State, it involves raising the level of excise duty on natural gas by 4 euros per megawatt hour. Its cost is estimated at 62 euros per year for a household heating with gas and living in a home of 100 square meters. But, explains Jean-François Husson, this same household would have had to assume an increase in its bill of 350 euros with the government’s plan to increase electricity taxation. The High Assembly considered that it was more logical to tax gas, which emits greenhouse gases, than electricity from carbon-free production (nuclear or renewable).