Budget 2027: MPs remove the surcharge on large businesses, against the advice of the government

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.

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. “A ball and chain at the feet of businesses” Created by the 2025 budget for a single year, then renewed in 2026 with a higher threshold, the surcharge today targets businesses 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.

EPR MP Charles Sitzenstuhl denounced “a burden on businesses”. The left, which called for the maintenance of current rates, castigated "the ultra-macronists, the allied friends of Ms. Le Pen, (...) who find that two billion euros in tax gifts is not enough", in the words of LFI deputy Aurélien Le Coq.

Machine-translated from French