After the response on the ground, place to the political and financial response. While the return of the rain this weekend has allowed a lull on the fire front, particularly in Gironde, the executive is already announcing a series of tax aid to support the victims of this summer, through the creation of a “fire unit”.
“We want to give a little oxygen to all those who have suffered directly from the fires”, declared this Monday the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal in an interview with “Dauphiné Libéré”, via “devices to support individuals, businesses and communities impacted.
From next week, a “fire unit” will therefore be set up in Bercy within the public finance department, in conjunction with the Urssaf, to set up what the executive calls a “tax buffer”.
income tax deadline
In detail, the guarantor of public funds provides for individuals who have seen their property permanently affected “mainly three measures”: an exceptional period for the collection of income tax, a suspension of local taxes (property tax and housing) concerning damaged housing and a potential downward revision of rental values, “depending on the depreciation of the property”.
Gabriel Attal evokes, for companies, “deferrals of payment of tax deadlines” and an accelerated reimbursement of VAT or CICE credits, “to give a boost to their cash flow”. Already during the Covid crisis, the government of the day had provided in the many tools put on the table to cushion the economic crisis for “tax shock absorbers” which went through deferrals.
Additional Credits
For the moment, the Bercy tenant does not mention an amount for this series of measures. Similarly, no figure has yet been given for the additional means that must be added to the finance bill for 2023 presented at the end of September, for the benefit of firefighting. Gabriel Attal only mentions “additional credits for civil security”. A programming law is planned for the start of the school year for the Ministry of the Interior, and the budgetary roadmap provided for a few weeks ago, before the outbreak of the fires, an additional 15 billion euros for the next five years.
“We will have to learn lessons from what has happened and we will change our means of action and anticipation”, added Gabriel Attal, promising “new measures from next summer”. Once the fires have been extinguished, President Emmanuel Macron will bring together all the actors from the departments concerned in order to reflect on the “model of prevention and fight against fires” in France, the Elysée had also announced on Sunday.
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