PARIS (Reuters) – The government will this week open discussions with employers’ unions concerning the implementation of an “exceptional contribution” by major companies in order to finance the abolition of the 3% tax on dividends, announced the Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance, Bruno Le Maire.
“These 10 billion will have to be paid. The idea of putting in place an exceptional contribution by very large companies has not been discarded”
“I have faith in their public spirit. Faced with this exceptional situation, they can understand that we ask them to make an effort (…) the issue is no longer economic, it is national”
“If it is not settled, this bill could prevent us from emerging from the excessive deficit procedure and weaken France in Europe”
He added that France is discussing in parallel with the European Commission “to demonstrate that this is a non-recurring event, which must not be part of the deficit calculation”
Bruno Le Maire has already indicated that the negotiated solution would become part of the 2017 year-end modified Finances Bill, that the government will put forward mid-November.
The newspaper Les Echos reports that the avenue of a surcharge on Corporate income tax for a single year, paid at the end of 2018 and restricted to large groups of companies, heads the list of possible scenarios.
The government has already provisioned 5.7 billion euros for the refund of this tax in the 5-year Public Finance programme Bill which was presented to Parliament at the end of September.