2023-09-05 13:29:46
A decree authorizing nearly 2,600 additional municipalities, mainly tourist ones, to increase their housing tax on second homes by up to 60% to combat the housing crisis has been published, we learned on Tuesday from the Association of Mayors of France (AMF). “This decree is an appropriate response to so-called ‘tense’ territories, where the presence of second homes is a brake on the mobilization of year-round housing,” Thierry Repentin, mayor of Chambéry and president of the city, told AFP. AMF Housing Commission.
“Put housing back on the permanent housing market”
Expected in the spring but postponed due to undesirable effects on the finances of certain municipalities, this decree published on August 26 intends to “put vacant housing or second homes back on the permanent housing market”.
Concretely, it “extends the scope of the annual tax on vacant housing (TLV, editor’s note)”, a zoning which makes it possible to increase “the housing tax on furnished housing not assigned to the main dwelling” , in other words second homes, “to municipalities which, without belonging to a zone of continuous urbanization of more than 50,000 inhabitants, are faced with a marked imbalance between supply and demand for housing”.
3,700 municipalities included in the new zoning
With this decree, a total of 3,700 municipalities are now part of this new zoning, mainly located on the coastlines, in Corsica and in mountain areas. They have until October 1 to deliberate so that this increase can apply from January 1, 2024. Previously, only municipalities belonging to a zone of continuous urbanization of more “than 50,000 inhabitants”, where a “marked imbalance between the supply and demand for housing leads to “serious difficulties in accessing housing”, were eligible.
But the text also mechanically deprives of revenue the municipalities which had introduced a housing tax on vacant housing (THLV). In fact, the communes cannot cumulate THLV and TLV, the TLV being collected by the State, the THLV by the communes. This loss is estimated at more than 24 million euros. “This decree should be improved to allow mayors to use independently of each other the housing tax on second homes and that on vacant housing, because we have territories where there are both a lot vacant housing and many second homes”, reacted Thierry Repentin, indicating however that the government had undertaken “to integrate this loss in the future finance law 2024”.
1693952782
#municipalities #increase #housing #tax
