Taxation of annuities: ultra-rich or simple savers, what types of annuitants Gabriel Attal is talking about ?

Quickly accused of wanting to attack savers, the government had to put out the fire by ensuring that the idea was not to increase taxes but rather to attack "superprofits". Wednesday April 3, as part of the questions to the government in the Assembly, the Prime Minister provided some clarifications.

For him, the executive is talking about taxing the "inframarginal rents of energy companies or undue profits linked to speculation in the context of inflation" and "not to go looking for, as I can read here and there, the livret A or the savings of the French". "We will never attack French people who work", he insisted.

The super profits of energy companies

The inframarginal rents of energy companies, mentioned by the Prime Minister, are already taxed in France. According to a majority deputy cited by the Figaro, who should take part in the "task force" parliamentarian who must meet on this subject, "the proposals to toughen the Crime, a tax which does not give the expected return, will be at the heart of the reflections".

The Crim is the contribution on infra-marginal rents. It was put in place thanks to a European measure adopted after the start of the war in Ukraine. First decided for the year 2023, it was renewed in 2024 but is the subject of criticism. Friday, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire deplored that this tax only brought in " only 300 million euros, or ten times less than what was planned and anticipated.

Highways, laboratories…

Other "annuities" could be targeted by the government. According to Le Figaro, it would be a question of restoring or tightening certain rules already put in place at one time by the executive, such as that put in place for laboratories in the context of the Covid crisis or the tax set up by the government to take super profits from highway companies this year.

Other avenues for taxing annuities?

Before any concrete proposal, vagueness still prevails regarding the notion of "taxation of annuities" which the task force led by Thomas Cazenave should focus on.

Le Monde questioned Elysian sources to try to explain. "The spirit here is more about exceptional annuities.  We still hold the same line, the tax mix which has made it possible to create two million jobs and break with decades of deindustrialization in reopening factories", we only respond.

Are other annuities in the sights, such as land income, dividends? The limit is set by the government for the time being: "The first red line is not to increase taxes on the middle classes, on working French people or on French people who have worked all their lives. Second thing, I will not increase taxes for what helps finance the work of the French, that is to say businesses", indicated Gabriel Attal on TF1 on March 27.