2023-09-20 09:47:01
We thought the measure was buried, but here it comes back through the voice of the presidential majority. During the second meeting of the “Bercy dialogues”, which brought together, on Tuesday September 19, around twenty parliamentarians from all sides ahead of the budgetary debates in Parliament, two Renaissance pillars of the finance committee of the National Assembly, the rapporteur of the budget Jean-René Cazeneuve and the deputy for Val-de-Marne Mathieu Lefèvre, spoke of the need to more strictly regulate share buybacks. In the crosshairs are companies that buy back their shares and then destroy them – which artificially increases their stock market value, without any link to their economic performance. The new Minister for Public Accounts, Thomas Cazenave, declared himself ” open ” on this subject, on which the deputies will work in view of the debates on the 2024 finance bill, unveiled on September 27.
“Buying back shares for a company can be a way of taking away profits that could have been redistributed to employees. We are ready to work to move forward by amendment on this subject”indicated Mr. Cazenave on Sud Radio, Wednesday September 20.
It was Emmanuel Macron who, in March, during an interview on TF1 and France 2, launched the idea of a “ exceptional contribution » on the large customary groups of this practice.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Superprofits: against a tax, Emmanuel Macron prefers an “exceptional contribution” from large companies in favor of their employees
In a context, already, of tension on purchasing power, and while the controversy over the taxation of superprofits remained lively, the Head of State denounced to television viewers the « cynicism » of « these big companies that we helped”. He declared that he wanted “that this money, when there are exceptional profits from companies ready to buy back their own shares, their workers can benefit from it”. French companies spent nearly 29 billion euros on share buybacks in 2021, and more than 27 billion in 2022, or three times more than before Covid-19.
“A question of social justice”
In the mind of the executive, however, it was not a question of taxing, but of encouraging companies to pay their employees better by distributing more profit-sharing, participation or bonuses. “ We could consider, for example, a doubling of the amounts paid,” the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, immediately clarified, targeting companies with more than 5,000 employees.
But since then, radio silence. Until Tuesday evening, therefore, when the fate to be reserved for share buybacks was mentioned by the representatives of the majority, supported by the MoDem and Horizons. Simple political display, or real desire to move forward? While inflation continues to fuel the discontent of the French, “we talked about taxing” share buybacks, indicates Monde M. Cazeneuve.
You have 51.53% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#majority #tackle #share #buybacks #companies