The amended finance law for 2014 plans to give local elected officials the possibility of increasing by 20%, starting January 1, 2015, the tax on all non-rented real estate in high-demand areas, which includes 28 metropolitan areas in France. The measure could bring in nearly 150 million euros.
In the Alpes-Maritimes department, there are nearly 330,000 secondary residences, including 35,000 houses (INSEE figures).
In fact, it will simply be enough for the Municipal Councils to vote on a resolution to ensure that this tax does not apply. One could wager that no municipality on the Cรดte d’Azur will take advantage of this law.
Can you imagine Christian Estrosi and his peers alienating taxpayers to enforce a Government decision?
Was the example of the school rhythms not enough?
Indeed, inventing an “optional” tax… It took some thinking!
Real estate professionals did not delay in reacting: “This new fiscal pressure adds to the already long list of fiscal constraints and administrative burdens and will, if elected officials decide to apply it, once again paralyze the already very stagnant real estate market,” says Frรฉdรฉric Pellou, president of the FNAIM Cรดte d’Azur.
His denunciation is clear. For him, it is “one more measure to give the final blow to real estate.”
And his analysis is also clear and uncompromising: “Who can be unrealistic enough to suppose that people with a second home will sell to avoid paying taxes? No one, except the technocrats who govern us and think only of raising taxes to address a deficit that, in fact, can only be filled by reducing State expenditures.
This measure will not free up any housing. We need to produce new housing and, for that, free up the market. One cannot govern solely by raising taxes.”
