“Very widely more than 10,000 euros». This is the cost that thelegal obligation to clear brush “in rural areas, for often elderly owners with considerable land around agricultural buildings”underlines this Monday, October 27, the socialist deputy Hervé Saulignac, in order to support a amendment At finance bill for 2026 tabled by his colleague Sophie Pantel. An amendment intended to “correct an inequality in this legal obligation, which imposes on owners of clear brush up to 150 meters around their homes in order to prevent fires, and which can be very expensive”.
Indeed, beyond simple clearing, it is necessary to take into account “cutting down trees, crushing and disposing of large volumes of plants”details the socialist parliamentarian. What if “the existing systems offer a tax advantage to taxable taxpayers, they de facto exclude low-income householdsin particular non-taxable households, who must nevertheless assume these same legal obligations”Sophie Pantel is indignant. His amendment therefore proposes the creation of a tax credit to finance bush clearing expenses, “so that all taxpayers are equal in the face of this obligation”.
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A tax credit of 50% of clearing expenses
A tax credit is in fact more attractive than a tax deduction for low-tax taxpayers, insofar as it is an amount that is reimbursed to them by the tax authorities, and not an amount subtracted from an already modest tax. In other words, the state can give you money if the amount of the tax credit is greater than the amount you owe to the tax authorities. Whereas if the tax reduction is greater than the amount of your tax, there cannot be a refund. The tax credit in question would represent 50% of clearing expenseswithin the limit of 3,000 euros per tax household.
The amendment received a unfavorable opinion of the general budget rapporteur to the National Assembly, Philippe Juvin, and the Minister of the Economy, Roland Lescure, both convinced that clearing expenses are already eligible for the personal services tax credit (Cisap). “This is absolutely false!”retorted Hervé Saulignac. The Minister of the Economy had another argument in his pocket: “You want to create a new tax loophole, while we are in the process of eliminating one!”.
A clearing obligation in some 40 departments
But, for the former Minister of Agriculture and current president of the Les Démocrates group in the Assembly, Marc Fesneau “a tax credit capped at 3,000 euros per household will always cost less than fire management”. And to recall that if the legal obligation of clearing was first limited to the south of France, it now concerns “43 to 45 departments” out of a hundred, global warming obliges. The deputies accepted the arguments of their colleagues: the amendment was adopted in public session this Monday, against the advice of the general rapporteur and the government. But there is still a long way to go until its possible inclusion in the final version of the finance law for 2026.
