Toulouse: no office tax to finance the arrival of the LGV in Matabiau
Local governments will have to spend the tax on future offices to finance the LGV, which was ruled out by Parliament. The group of elected AMC regrets this lack of business contribution. The special equipment tax, which finances the project, will however be paid by the owners, individuals and businesses.
over eight billion euros! This is the cost of the high-speed line that should link Bordeaux to Toulouse by 2030, if all goes well. 4.1 billion are promised by the State and the same amount will have to be found by the 26 local authorities concerned, including the regions of Occitanie and Nouvelle Aquitaine and Toulouse Métropole. Four billion is close to a few million of the total amount of all transport arrangements planned in the Toulouse metropolitan area by 2035, including the 3rd metro line (2.7 billion alone!).
Who will pay?
To ensure such funding, the State has accepted the creation of a new tax, the special equipment tax (TSE) which should generate € 24 million in revenue per year over 40 years, or nearly one billion euros. euros (€ 960m). All natural or legal persons (companies) already subject to property tax (built and non-built properties), housing tax on second homes and other furnished premises not managed for housing, main as well as companies (including microenterprises and autoentrepreneurs) who pay the property contribution of companies. Only tenants who do not pay property tax escape this new tax. This TSE will be paid for by all these people living less than an hour by car from a station served by the future LGV. It is estimated that this TSE will cause an increase in the property tax of 0.4% per year, or a few euros.
What contribution for companies?
This new LGV financing plan is the subject of a deliberation which must be voted on December 16 by Toulouse Métropole. The group of elected AMC (Alternative for a citizen metropolis), led by Marc Péré, mayor of the Union, regrets in a press release, that the tax on offices (TSB), provided for in a previous deliberation, voted on October 14 last by the metropolis, has disappeared. This TSB “had to involve economic circles”. And AMC commented: “The dinners in town of Medef (the movement of companies in France, which represent patrons) have borne fruit: companies will not pay for this LGV line”.
This is not really correct, according to Sacha Briand, since “the TSE will be paid by all those subject to built land, that is to say by the owners of houses and premises of commercial and professional premises, therefore also by companies “, recalls the big money manager of the metropolis, who explains:” When local communities worked on the LGV financing project, the regions (Occitanie and New Aquitaine, Editor’s note) launched a study to imagine how to do it. lower charges on communities. This study envisages an increase or fifteen taxes to be created, which have been communicated to the State and scrutinized by Bercy (the Ministry of Finance, Editor’s note). There remained the TSE and the TSB, which contributed to the financing protocol approved on October 14 by the metropolis. The Parliament retained only the TSE, because there is not much visibility for the TSB, in particular in terms of simulations “, according to the metropolitan elected official (see box) who recalls:” Since the Revolution, the creation of a new tax raised solely by the legislative power ”.
It is therefore difficult for the metropolis, as for the region, to reconsider the choice made by Parliament to retain only the TSE.
A lack of simulations, according to Sacha Briand
“A good tax is a tax which yields a lot but which requires little”, recalls Sacha Briand, the great treasurer of Toulouse Métropole and the City of Toulouse. “Thus the special equipment tax will cost each person liable to built property only a few euros compared to the average property tax”, continues the vice-president of Toulouse Métropole in charge of finance, “for the tax on offices, we do not not much visibility because there were few simulations; anything that comes to the contribution of local communities to the unloading of the project is of course welcome, but we are always careful not to weigh too heavily on the local economy, ”concludes the elected metropolitan. The special equipment tax should bring in 24 million euros per year and will be collected by the public establishment, to be created, in charge of financing the Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed line project.