“There's less revenue than expected, whether it's corporate tax or income tax. Things are still going well on VAT, but July was not very good,” Éric Coquerel said at the end of this meeting, believing that this “worries” the outgoing government. However, it has not received any quantified information on this deficit.
France committed to the European Commission to reduce the public deficit from 5.5% of GDP in 2023 to 5.1% in 2024then 4.1% in 2025.
A new government before the “reprint”
Éric Coquerel and general budget rapporteur Charles de Courson (LIOT) have given the government until September 2 to send them the “separate print” of the 2025 budget – which provides an overview of the appropriations provided for each ministerial mission – and the information on the execution of the budget 2024.
Thomas Cazenave spoke successively with the two MPs on Thursday and promised to send them an unofficial document by Monday evening, but which would summarize the various ceiling letters sent by Matignon to each ministry in mid-August as part of a budget ” reversible”. project by the future government.
Éric Coquerel, still embittered by the “democratic denial” of Emmanuel Macron's failure to consider NFP candidate for Matignon Lucie Castetshowever he said he “understood” that the outgoing government was “waiting for a new government to send the official reprint”.
MPs also want information on the completion of the first 10 billion cancellations of loans from ministries announced by Bercy in the spring. Thomas Cazenave promised the document “in September”.
Reductions in tax loopholes
As for another 10 billion, which had to be borne both by ministries (5 billion), local authorities (2 billion) and brought by new taxes on energy company rents and share buybacks (3 billion in total), Thomas Cazenave would have been agree. that Bercy “no longer expects anything from the communities”, who never accepted this request.
In compensation, the new freezes of the ministries increased to 7 billion euros.
For 2025, the 20 billion savings planned to hopefully reduce the public deficit to 4.1% of GDP, to return below 3% in 2027, would be distributed between 15 billion euros for the State and the rest for Security Social.
Matignon's ceiling letters, by reproducing to the nearest euro for 2025 the expenditure of 2024 (492 billion euros), would only generate, according to Matignon, an economy of about 10 billion euros, just by not indexing to an inflation predictable of around 2% going forward. year.
The rest, according to Éric Coquerel, could come from both the reduction of tax loopholes and the reproduction in 2025 of additional income from share buybacks and annuities from energy companies. The chairman of the finance committee estimated that despite the tight deadlines, the new government could be “on target” to send the funding bill to Parliament on October 1, even though he believes it will be difficult to really “put the finger on it”. the text in this time frame.