The National Assembly adopted the transformation of the tax reduction for dependency and accommodation costs in nursing homes into a tax credit. It remains to be seen whether this measure, which would cost the State nearly 900 million euros, will pass the filter of a probable 49-3.
© THOMAS SAMSONAFP
– Socialist MP Christine Pirès Beaune has been advocating for several years for the transformation, into a tax credit, of the tax reduction for dependency and accommodation costs in nursing homes.
This time, the socialists transformed the test. During the examination of the “revenue” section of the budget for 2025 in a public session at the National Assembly this Thursday, October 24, the deputies gave their support to the transformation into a tax credit of the tax reduction in respect of dependency and accommodation costs for people accommodated in accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) or in long-term care units (USLD). But what would this change in practice? Currently, the tax reduction reaches 25% within the limit of 10,000 euros of expenses, i.e. a maximum benefit of 2,500 euros. Problem: this tax reduction only benefits taxable people.
Hence the idea of socialist MP Christine Pirès-Beaune to transform the tax reduction into a tax credit. In this way, non-taxable people could indeed receive money from the tax authorities. What they can’t expect today in the tax cut. Let’s take the example of a dependent person who is eligible for a tax reduction of 2,000 euros but who is not taxable. In fact, she does not receive any tax benefit. If it were a tax credit, on the other hand, then this person would receive a transfer from the tax authorities in the amount of 2,000 euros.
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For the socialist elected representative of the second constituency of Puy-de-Dôme, it is above all a question of defending a measure of fiscal justice: “We cannot, in the same nursing home, have people who have a pension of 3,000 euros who therefore do not need tax assistance (…) and, alongside, people who have less than 1,000 euros in retirement, and who do not have this tax assistance”she pleaded to the parliamentarians and ministers present in the hemicycle.
But such a measure is expensive: “Basically, I cannot be indifferent to Christine Pirès Beaune’s idea, but, as general rapporteur, I ask myself the question of how we finance (it)?”raised Charles de Courson, general rapporteur of the Finance Committee. Because the cost of transforming the tax reduction into a tax credit would amount to “880 million euros”he recalled. The bill for the state coffers would indeed be much higher than today. About three times more than tax reduction which cost, according toamendment supported by socialist elected officials, 272 million euros in 2023 and benefited 424,000 dependent people.
Unsurprisingly, the Minister of Budget and Public Accounts, Laurent Saint-Martin, therefore issued an unfavorable opinion before the adoption of the amendment. “We cannot look at the problem of out-of-pocket costs and the financing of dependency solely through fiscal tropism. (…) We cannot ignore the problem of financing the transformation of the tax reduction into a tax credit.
“When you are at home, you are entitled to this tax credit”
The adoption of Christine Pirès Beaune’s amendment follows the first green light given by the Finance Committee of the National Assembly last week. At that time, the socialist deputy was able to count on the communist support of Nicolas Sansu, deputy of Cher: “When you are at home, you are entitled to this tax credit. That is to say that there is an inequality between people who are in establishments and people who are at home.he pointed out during the debates in committee.
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However, this is not the first time that such a measure has been adopted during the different stages of the legislative process of the finance bill without appearing, ultimately, in the text published in the Official Journal. But the transformation of the tax reduction into a tax credit for residents of nursing homes and USLDs has never passed the filter of 49-3, regularly drawn by Elisabeth Borne in 2022 and 2023. In other words, its adoption by the National Assembly at first reading, after the first green light from the finance committee of the Palais Bourbon, does not presage its inclusion in the final version of the finance bill for 2025.
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