Budget 2027: MPs remove a surcharge on large businesses which was expected to bring in 5 billion euros in 2027

The deputies removed on Tuesday, by two votes, the renewal of the surtax on the profits of large companies planned in the 2027 budget, a vote probably without future for a text promised in 49. 3 or in the ordinances. By 79 votes to 77, the Assembly adopted, against the advice of the government, deletion amendments tabled in particular by the RN, the UDR, the Republican Right, Horizons and even two elected officials from the Macronist EPR group.

This setback for the executive, however, risks being short-lived. Lacking a majority in the Assembly, the government seems condemned to pass its budget through 49.3 or through ordinances, two routes which would allow it to reintroduce the measure.

This was actually what happened last year. Rejected by the deputies in the new reading, the surcharge was only included in the 2026 budget thanks to 49. 3.

5 billion euros in yield The vote on the entire "revenue" section, scheduled for November 3, should also result in a rejection. The text would then go to the Senate in its initial version. Created by the 2025 budget for a single year, then renewed in 2026 with a higher threshold, the surcharge today targets companies with at least 1.5 billion euros in turnover and is calculated as a percentage of corporate tax.

Some 400 companies are concerned, according to the government, which proposes to extend it in 2027 with rates reduced by around a quarter, for a return reduced to 5 billion euros compared to 7.3 billion estimated this year. The vote also eliminates the return, at a reduced rate, of the exceptional contribution from large shipowners, which primarily affects CMA CGM. The surcharge is a pet peeve of employers.

Its renewal, even "reduced from 7 to 5 billion euros, remains a bad signal", judged Medef at the beginning of October, considering that it "weakens the word given and worries investors". The government presented the rate cut as a way of “confirming the temporary nature” of the surcharge. But “from the moment it lasts more than a year, it is no longer an exceptional contribution at all,” retorted Marc Le Fur (Republican Right) during the session.

Tax on global profits EPR MP Charles Sitzenstuhl denounced “a burden on businesses”. The left, which demanded the maintenance or even an increase in current rates, castigated "a majority of the central bloc allied with the National Rally which decided to increase the deficit by 5 billion", in the words of LFI deputy Éric Coquerel after the vote on the amendments. Later in the evening, however, the deputies adopted, again by two votes (by 74 votes to 72) and against the advice of the government, a communist amendment aimed at taxing multinationals on a part of their global profits proportional to the part of their turnover generated in France, in order to counter possible transfers of profits abroad.

Machine-translated from French