While energy bills are exploding in many European countries, the debate on the super profits of oil and gas companies is agitating the political class. The government chose not to tax these super profits and preferred to help consumers with the tariff shield. The left calls for a tax on the windfall profits of large energy groups.
Guest of France Inter Thursday, August 25, the president of the group La France insoumise à l’Assemblée, Mathilde Panot, affirms that the “east france […] almost the only one“countries not to do so since”Italy does it, Spain does it, UK does it, the UN asks for it, the European Commission also asks for it“. This is true for the countries and institutions mentioned. We detail all this for you.
Across the Channel, it was a conservative government that decided to apply an exceptional tax of 25% to oil companies while consumers saw their bills climb very painfully. The law entered into force in July and should yield the equivalent of nearly six billion euros within a year.
British companies operating in the North Sea are theoretically taxed at 40% on their profits; with the new tax, the tax rate jumped to 65%. But that’s the theory, since these companies were getting so many tax breaks in recent years that BP and Shell didn’t pay taxes on their North Sea production in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Mathilde Panot also mentions Spain and Italy. In Spain, the socialist government has created an additional 25% tax on the super profits of oil and gas companies, but also banks. The government hopes to reap seven billion euros in the next two years.
In Italy, in March the government of national unity decided to tax the additional profits made by oil and gas companies at 25%. He hoped to collect more than ten billion euros this year, but he recently admitted that the receipts were much lower than expected.
These two transnational institutions have given a positive opinion to these exceptional taxes. From the month of March and the start of the war in Ukraine, the Commission in Brussels said that the States were authorized to tax exceptional profits to finance measures to support the populations.
As for the UN, it was its Secretary General Antonio Gutterres who called on August 3 for the introduction of taxes on these record profits, which he described as “immoral” in order to help populations and finance the energy transition.
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