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France quantifies its Covid bill. The pandemic will have cost since 2020 a hundred billion euros, predicts Olivier Dussopt. The State will have spent 70 billion euros in 2020 and a little more than 60 billion in 2021. For this month of January, around 10 billion euros have been injected to fight against the Omicron variant, indicates the French Minister of Accounts public.
Emergency aid for businesses, partial unemployment, solidarity funds, financial support for screening tests and vaccines, the fight against Covid is costing the State 140 billion euros, according to its forecasts.
In 2022, the expenses to overcome the Omicron wave would be 150 to 250 million euros per month, in the current situation, according to the Minister of Public Accounts. This is still much less than at the height of the crisis.
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In addition, the State had planned to allocate two billion euros of unconsumed credits to companies last year, but it turns out that these unconsumed credits are greater than expected. They amount to 3.8 billion euros, which should more than enough “, believes Olivier Dussopt.
State revenue is improving
On the other hand, in terms of health, the provision of 5 billion euros ” for vaccination and testing this year will be exceeded “, warns the Minister. However, he estimates that the Covid envelope of 16 billion “ probably represents a spending ceiling for 2022 ».
Good news all the same, growth is better than expected in France. State revenues are 20 billion euros higher in 2021.
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On the growth side, households paid more than one and a half billion more than expected in income tax and levies on capital income. The VAT reported a surplus of more than three and a half billion than expected.
But it is against all odds the tax on corporate profits that brought in the most, 10 billion euros returned to the state coffers. These additional revenues should make it possible to contain the level of public debt for 2021, according to Olivier Dussopt.
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