Swept away in the National Assembly ten days ago, the proposal for a tax on the exceptional superprofits of multinationals has rebounded in force in the Senate. Monday 1er August, parliamentarians from the ranks of the left (socialists, ecologists, communists) and the center returned to the charge during the examination at first reading of the 2022 amending finance bill (PLFR) with seven amendments to try to influence the government’s position. In the absence of support from the senatorial right, all were rejectedincluding three with a difference of twenty votes, only.
At the opening of the session, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, reaffirmed his hostility to such a measure which unites a large part of the opposition in Parliament. “When we are the most taxed country of all European countries, we do not add an additional tax to all the taxes that already exist”, he argued at the Luxembourg Palace.
Strong government opposition
The Bercy tenant estimated that companies with significant profits ” must participate in the collective effort, as CMA CGM, Total or Engie do, by returning the money directly to the French rather than to the Public Treasury”. “Fiscal stability is priceless”, he repeated, stressing that these large companies only realize a fraction of their turnover on national territory.
This proposal had been defeated in the National Assembly on Saturday July 23, after the announcement made the day before by the TotalEnergies group of a reduction in its prices at the pump of 20 centimes per litertwenty-four hours before the start of the examination of the PLFR by the deputies.
The right, first open to the idea of superprofit taxationhad welcomed the approach of TotalEnergies and ended up supporting the presidential camp after an agreement reached with the executive for a reduction in the price of a liter of fuel, from 18 to 30 euro cents from September.
Devoting half of his speech before the senators to “this subject which has been in the headlines for several weeks”, Mr. Le Maire tried on Monday to dissuade centrist elected officials, allies of the Les Républicains (LR) group within the senatorial majority, from voting for these amendments. “I don’t think it’s in your political DNA to multiply taxes and levies”did he declare.
A measure of “social justice”
But the announcement of doubling of the profits of TotalEnergies in the second quarter of 2022 (5.7 billion dollars, approximately 5.6 billion euros) reinforced the conviction of the opposition. Among them, the centrist elected representatives defended the creation of a “exceptional solidarity contribution on superprofits” up to 20%. In their viewfinder, companies whose net profit would have reached at least 1 million euros for the year 2021 and being 20% higher than the average profit made in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
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