“There will be no return to housing tax on main residences”, assured Sunday, November 3, Catherine Vautrin, minister responsible for partnership with the territories and decentralization, in the columns of Parisian. A statement which put an end to rumors according to which the housing tax on the main residence could be reinstated. A flagship proposition of Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign, its gradual disappearance had sparked an outcry within associations of local elected officials, who feared a loss of autonomy vis-à-vis the State and concentrated local taxation. only on owners.
If the prospect of a return of the housing tax has indeed been ruled out by the government, the minister said she was open “to possible participation in living in the city or in the village”. Catherine Vautrin has also announced that she wants to organize a consultation with local elected officials from 2025, an opportunity for them to propose alternatives to the housing tax on the main residence. One of them, suggested by the Association of Mayors of France and called “citizen contribution to public service” seems to be widely convincing among associations of local elected officials.
“Restore the fiscal link between citizens and communities”
This new tax would take the form of a tax “based overall on income, and not on the rental values of properties as the council tax did, which was unfair”, explains Philippe Laurent, vice-president of the Association of Mayors of France and UDI mayor of Sceaux (Hauts-de-Seine). “It’s a democratic problem: even if this new contribution only amounts to €10 per month for the lowest-income taxpayers, it is important that everyone participates in financing nurseries, leisure centers or schools. » According to this local finance specialist, the implementation of this new tax would allow local authorities to regain part of their autonomy, and to partially decorrelate local tax policy from the property tax alone.
Although the outlines of this proposal must be further refined, the objective of gradually involving all households is shared by many mayors, including small towns. “In certain peripheral municipalities, the only local tax still in force is the property tax and only concerns 20% of taxpayersdeplores André Robert, general delegate of the Association of Small Towns in France. Hence the idea of restoring the fiscal link between citizens and communities, through a universal tax on local services. » Here too, André Robert evokes the idea of even symbolic participation for the most modest households, in order to “make citizens aware that they are not just consumers”.
If Minister Catherine Vautrin judged in the columns of Parisian that the idea was “not ridiculous”she recalled that France had already “a high rate of compulsory deductions”and that the government would ensure “so that it does not increase but rather reduces it gradually”. A paradox which did not fail to make Philippe Laurent react. “Whether we call it a contribution or a tax, it will indeed be a tax, supposed to give us greater budgetary room for maneuver,” underlines the vice-president of the Association of Mayors of France, keen to put this subject on the agenda of the next congress of mayors, which is to be held from November 19 to 21 in Paris.
