The Senate made permanent the increase to 7,500 euros in the tax exemption ceiling for overtime, Monday, August 1, with the support of the government. Last week, the National Assembly had voted an increase in the tax exemption ceiling for overtime, but only for the year 2022, as part of the debates on the amending finance bill.
By examining the text in turn at first reading, the Senate voted by a show of hands an amendment by the general rapporteur Jean-François Husson (LR) perpetuating this enhancement. “The idea of raising the tax exemption ceiling from 5,000 to 7,500 euros is going in the right direction (…), we are ready to make this tax exemption for overtime hours, increased to 7,500 euros, definitive”declared the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, before the debates.
Socialists and Communists, on the contrary, wanted the article to be deleted. Socialist Rémi Féraud castigated the “refusal of the government to move towards a real salary increase” and “a way to go back to the 35 hours without assuming it”. Céline Brulin (CRCE, with a communist majority) saw it “a poisoned gift for employees”. “We are here in the face of a social regression”added Pascal Savoldelli.
Currently, overtime is tax-exempt up to a ceiling of 5,000 euros per year, with a maximum of 220 hours worked over a year, excluding branch, company or specific collective agreement.
Moreover, against the advice of the government this time, the High Assembly also voted (144 votes against 116) the sustainability of the possibility for companies to buy back RTT days from employees. “We are in the middle of the night in August to bury the 35 hours”accused the ecologist Thomas Dossus, the socialist David Assouline speaking “of force”.
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The measure had been voted by the National Assembly, but only for 2022 and 2023. Gabriel Attal, Minister of Public Accounts, wanted “maintain the temporary nature of this system at this stage”in order to measure its evolution.