“Bercy has left in the budget the parliamentary amendment that regulates the fate of the Airbnb tax gap,” said communist deputy Sébastien Jumel on Friday on X (ex-Twitter).
The reason: an article adopted at the initiative of senators from different groups was retained in the text currently being studied in the Assembly. It plans to reduce the tax deduction on the rental of furnished tourist accommodation to 30% (down from 71%) in areas experiencing difficulties in access to housing, lowering the income ceiling to 15,000 euros. In rural areas the reduction would be 50%.
Opposition lawmakers, as well as some in the majority, are pushing for a review of this tax break, backed by local elected officials who complain about the lack of available housing due to short-term rentals.
The government had also stuck to reducing the cut to 50 percent in tense areas in the first reading in its draft budget. But the new version goes much further.
A “hardware error”
However, the executive had the opportunity to rectify the situation when it launched a 49.3 consultation on the text in the General Assembly on Thursday. The constitutional weapon allows him to change the copy by keeping the amendments he wants, but the amendment that intended to rewrite this article was not kept.
It is a “material error,” a government source admitted, also emphasizing that the rules of parliamentary procedure “do not allow the provision to be immediately corrected.”
The article results in a “substantial change in the taxation of owners”, and “will be amended during a next legislative vector, at the latest in the 2025 budget”, emphasizes this source, which confirms that “the provision n ‘is not intended to apply to be in the meantime’.
A majority parliamentary source explains that the cut could be revised in a future amended funding bill. But the debate will continue to play out in the Assembly with continued discussion of a transpartisan bill on the subject expected in January.