Global minimum tax to hit French farm cooperatives
PARIS, October 5, 2023 – The global minimum corporate tax will hit big farm cooperatives in France.
Presenting the 2024 budget bill recently, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire revealed that the cooperatives which are a cornerstone of France’s agriculture industry would be covered by the tax.
France’s 2024 budget includes legislation to put a floor on corporate tax next year in line with a 2021 agreement among nearly 140 countries, behind which France and Le Maire were a driving force.
The agreement, designed to ensure big digital multinationals cannot legally reduce their tax bills to next to nothing, requires countries to tax companies with revenues of at least 750 million Euros at a rate of least 15 percent.
Since they are not corporations, France’s huge farm cooperatives are currently exempt from usual corporate income tax paid by most companies although some have revenues in excess of a billion euros.
“The farm cooperatives should be in the scope of the minimum tax,” Le Maire – himself a former farm minister – told lawmakers on Wednesday.
“We have opened talks with the cooperatives to find the best way forward to reconcile the legacy advantage they benefit from and the implementation of the minimum tax.”
France’s agricultural cooperative association declined to comment.
France’s biggest farm cooperatives include Sodiaal in dairy with 5.5 billion euros in sales last year, Tereos in sugar and ethanol with 6.6 billion euros, multisector group Agrial with 7.2bln euros and Cooperl with 2.8bln euros.
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