Our European neighbors are more likely to cross the border to refuel. It is that the boost at the pump of 30 euro cents, financed by the State, and the offer of 20 additional euro cents proposed by Total since last Thursday have caused prices to melt in France: 1 .54 euro per liter of SP95-E10 on average last week and 1.78 euro per liter of diesel. Impossible, however, to know the number of foreign motorists who have traveled a few more kilometers to take advantage of these tricolor rebates.
“Anyway, if they fill up in France, they pay taxes on each litre, warns a senior official from Bercy. It’s always more money for the state coffers. The proof: if the public coffers offer 30 cents for each liter purchased at 1.78 euros, for example, the motorist pays 79 cents in taxes to the State. These are therefore, with these new customers, additional tax revenue collected for Bercy, up to about 50 cents per liter of fuel.
The rebates should still cost the State 4 billion euros
But beware: the exceptional situation at the pump is not a godsend for the state either. On the contrary, since the inflationary crisis and the fuel boosts, the public coffers have been losing money compared to a typical year. “Usually, tax revenues on fuels bring in around 45 billion euros to the State, it is estimated in the entourage of the Minister of the Economy. The internal consumption tax on energy products (TICPE) and the VAT on the TICPE are fixed, their amounts do not change according to the price of the barrel. On the other hand, the VAT varies according to the price of oil or the costs of transport and distribution. The higher the prices, the higher the tax revenue. »
Jackpot, then? According to Bercy, if no figures are yet available with certainty, VAT revenue on fuels should swell by 3 billion euros in 2022. That’s a lot, but not enough to absorb the 7.5 billion euros. released to finance rebates. “The state does not take advantage of the situation, we summarize at Bercy. The boosts are expensive for public finances but they are still less expensive than the proposals of the opposition parties who demanded tax cuts to have a liter at 1.5 euros. There, the State would have lost, permanently, 30 or 40 billion in tax revenue! We are far from the 4 billion euros that these devices cost us. »