2023-12-21 17:42:41
Published on Dec 21 2023 at 6:36 p.m.Updated Dec 21 2023 at 6:42 p.m.
The blunder made the oppositions angry. Last week, the government “by mistake” retained a senatorial amendment to the finance bill removing the so-called “Airbnb” tax loophole. Since then, the executive has repeated that its blunder will have no impact, and affirms that the reductions currently in force for rental income from furnished tourist accommodation will remain unchanged. But government assertiveness is far from convincing specialists.
“I want to reassure the French, nothing will change immediately,” Thomas Cazenave, the Budget Minister, assured again this Thursday in “L’Opinion”. This is because the step is high: according to the budget for 2024, which has just been adopted in Parliament, the reduction for the rental of classified tourist accommodation will increase to 1is January from 71% to 30% and the ceiling from 188,700 euros to 15,000 euros.
Baroque maneuver
The minister promises to rectify the situation next year “before the spring 2025 tax declaration”. In the meantime, Bercy has come up with a solution to prevent the new rules from applying to rents received in 2023, which will be declared in spring 2024.
“Since the rules were changed very late, the change is unfavorable to taxpayers and it is an error, we will launch a tax instruction in January, after the law has been promulgated,” explains- we in Bercy. “It will provide for the application of the rules initially planned for 2023 income, without retroactive effect of the measure adopted in error. » This doctrine will result in a publication in “Bofip”, the “Official Bulletin of Public Finances”, probably in January.
But this baroque maneuver undoubtedly does not exhaust the subject. “The amendment [sur la fiscalité des meublés touristiques, NDLR] must apply to 1is January, the government cannot change anything,” said a tax lawyer. He recalls that article 1 of the finance law for 2024 stipulates that it applies to the income tax due for 2023 – a “small retroactivity” that is completely banal for measures decided in law of finance.
“An administrative investigation does not have the effect of preventing the application of the law,” adds this specialist. If the tax administration did not implement the new 30% reduction within the limit of 15,000 euros of income, “the Court of Auditors could hold the Director General of Public Finances responsible for not collecting the tax that ‘he must collect’.
The threat from the Council of State
Other opinions are more nuanced. “From a practical point of view, it is entirely feasible for the government to publish a commentary in which it is said that as a tolerance, the new thresholds will not apply to 2023 income”, explains by example Pierre Bonamy, partner at RMT firm. This document would be legally enforceable. “But it remains fragile,” continues the lawyer. Nothing prevents a housing rights association, for example, from attacking this doctrine for excess of power before the Council of State. »
This threat is more than a hypothesis. The communist senator Ian Brossat, at the origin of the amendment retained by the government against its will, already brandishes it in a letter addressed to Bruno Le Maire this Monday and of which “Les Echos” has taken note. “Parliament does not vote on the law so that it is not applied,” growls the elected official, who reserves “the right to appeal to the Council of State.”
For the companies concerned as for individuals, there is reason to be lost. “For the moment, it’s vague,” recognizes Dominique Debuire, president of the National Union for the Promotion of Vacation Rentals (UNPL), which brings together furnished tourist platforms from Airbnb to Abritel by the way. by Clévacances or Leboncoin. Like many professionals in the sector, he is worried about the government’s error: “If it is one. We no longer really know what his will is. »
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