The cost of the health crisis and changes in tax revenue do not make it easy to prepare the municipality’s budget for 2021. Wednesday evening, in municipal council, elected officials had to proceed again to the budget orientation debate (DOB) however already completed at the end of last year.
“Since December, new elements have arisen concerning the rate of the household waste collection tax, the replacement of the housing tax, and the elements of impact on the municipal budget”, explains Karine Traval-Michelet, mayor of Colomiers, opening the session. “We still do not have any compensation for the expenses which affected our savings in 2020 but the State will replace the receipts from the housing tax by the transfer of part of the departmental built land to the municipalities”.
The crisis is already costing € 2 million
If the impact of the health crisis is estimated at 2 million euros for the city, the mayor considers that: “Despite many uncertainties, our political program remains relevant with its major axes linked to citizenship, to ecological transition , urban restructuring, public tranquility “.
In this context, the municipality is implementing a new financial strategy. Local taxation must evolve with the abolition of the housing tax for 80% of the population already, ie a gain for households of € 1,000 to € 1,500. “All of this is positive for taxpayers, which is very different for communities with increasingly constrained tax revenues to ensure our public services in particular,” adds the mayor. “At the metropolitan level, the will is to move towards a harmonization of the tax for household waste collection. In Colomiers, the rate goes from 13.20% to 8.10%.
Opposition remarks
For Thomas Lamy, municipal councilor of the group “Osons une autre histoire pour Colomiers”: “The Val d’Aran rehabilitation project seems to us to be going in the right direction and we will support it. We also agree for a more united city , more attentive but nevertheless we think that there is progress to be made and to transform the test.
In the ranks of the group “Live better together in Colomiers”, its leader Patrick Jimena notes: “It is a first to have a 2nd DOB for the same budget. At a time when the needs of the population are more important, we are witnessing an inexorable drop in the overall state operating allocations, which I have been saying for years. We will therefore continue to cooperate for a better city and to support the projects presented. I also point out some shortcomings on the question We are also cautious about our financial capacities. We welcome the ecological transition house and the fertile city, but we could also have built an educational farm.
“To maintain a savings project that allows us to implement our ambitious policy, we need to set a new reference rate on built land at 38.75% that we consider reasonable and which makes it one of the lowest in the world. ‘agglomeration for towns of the same stratum “, specifies the socialist mayor when discussing the rates of direct taxes. “All while maintaining a debt repayment threshold of less than 8 years. We should maintain savings of € 3 million”.
According to Patrick Flour, elected from La République en Marche and president of the opposition group “Let’s dare another story for Colomiers”: “To obtain fiscal and budgetary neutrality, the rate of the property tax on buildings (TFB) of the town must fall by 2.14% from 14.61% to 12.47% (i.e. a 15% rate cut), but for budgetary reasons, you are proposing an increase of more than 15%, i.e. + 35% per compared to the rate of the TFB necessary for neutrality We therefore propose a more moderate increase in taxation with an overall rate of 35.62% on land built against your 38.75%.
In conclusion, Karine Traval-Michelet declared: It is necessary to correct because your presentation is distorted. Currently, all taxes are 55.67%, tomorrow this rate will be 60.05%. Depending on the calculations, this represents either a 7% or 5% increase and even another way of calculating a 10% decrease for taxpayers. That’s the truth of the numbers. ”Response during the budget vote on April 7.
Quarrel over the new tax system
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