2023-10-16 07:32:42
Last day, this Monday, October 16, for owners to pay the property tax, unless they have opted for electronic payment, which offers them a few additional days of delay. With an average increase of 9.6% this year, the bill is steep for owners.
For Luc Alain Vervisch, director of studies at La Banque Postale, which publishes each year a note on the situation of local finances, this development must however be carefully detailed: “This year, municipalities were rather reluctant to increase the property tax rate,” observes this local finance specialist.
The 2023 increase in property tax seems to be mainly due to the revaluation of the rental bases used as a basis for calculating the property tax. However, this is implemented by the State based on inflation; hence an exceptional increase in 2023, of +7.1%.
Without Paris, an average increase of 0.9%
If we now focus on the rates applied by the municipalities, the increase was much less significant: +2.6% on average. “The increase in tax pressure would in reality be due to significant increases in a small number of municipalities”, notes La Banque Postale. Indeed, according to the General Directorate of Public Finances, only 14% of municipalities have actually increased their rate.
Of the 875 municipalities which chose an increase, one of them stands out: Paris, with a spectacular increase of 51%. The city, also a department, must in fact face the drop in transfer taxes, following the drop in real estate transactions. With its population and its financial strength, the capital weighs heavily in the bill. “Without Paris, the average rate increase would only be 0.9%”, underlines Luc Alain Vervisch.
Other levers
The other municipalities have favored other levers this year. “The 2023 financial year records the increase in specific taxation”, note La Banque Postale. Thus the tax on the removal of household waste (TEOM, 8.8 billion euros, + 1.4%), the tax for the management of aquatic environments and flood prevention (Gemapi, 500 million euros), tourist tax or mobility payment paid by companies.
On this last aspect, Medef has just sounded the alarm: the increase in the mobility payment in Île-de-France alone will cost 400 million euros to businesses in the Ile-de-France region.
While local taxation increasingly weighs primarily on owners, voices are being raised to reform it. The Terra Nova foundation has just proposed merging the different local taxes into a single “tax on financing municipal or intermunicipal public services”, to which all households, tenants and owners alike, would be subject.
“Do not confuse financial autonomy and fiscal autonomy”
If Terra Nova notices well that, “in the current context, it seems difficult to create new taxes”, the government, however, fears that taxation in the hands of local authorities will undermine its promise of tax cuts.
“We must not confuse the financial autonomy of local authorities and fiscal autonomy”, pleaded the Minister of Public Accounts, Thomas Cazenave, Thursday October 12 before the Association of Economic and Financial Journalists. And to plead for the first – “to be free to spend one’s resources as they see fit” – rather than allowing communities to define the rates themselves.
Gathered from Wednesday to Friday at a conference in Orléans (Loiret), the Intercommunalities of France go further by proposing to green a local tax system still mainly based on buildings, by anticipating the implementation of zero net artificialization (ZAN) . In particular, they suggest a revision of the calculation of rental values to discourage construction on undeveloped land and encourage the densification of already built spaces.
If the property tax arouses so much interest, it is because with the abolition of the housing tax, it represents 41% of the tax resources of municipalities and intermunicipalities, for a total of 40 billion.
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Changes in local taxation
In 2023, the increase in local taxation is also marked by the increase in housing tax on second homes. The number of municipalities able to receive it increased from 1,140 to 3,693 and the average rate increased by 3.8%, for an expected return of 2.2 billion euros.
In its draft budget, the government plans moreover to compensate for the municipalities concerned the fact that they will no longer be able to collect housing tax on vacant housing.
The government also said it was in favor of a MoDem amendment aimed at removing the 71% reduction on furnished tourist accommodation, from which many Airbnb accommodations benefit to the detriment of the local rental market.
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