Reduction in jobs in the public service, fund for innovation still largely ineffective, costly tax loopholes ... The Court of Auditors published, on Tuesday, its report on the execution of the 2019 Budget.
Tax loopholes, or "tax expenditures" in the jargon of public accounts, are "more and more expensive", the Court said in its opinion. With more than 99 billion euros in 2019, the growth of the cost of the 474 tax loopholes was faster over a year than that of the amount of net tax revenue.
Systems "whose effectiveness, relevance or impact have not been established"
The main tax expenditure was until last year the Employment Competitiveness Tax Credit (CICE, 19.6 billion euros), ahead of the Research Tax Credit (6.2 billion), supposed to be planed the year next, and the tax credit for the employment of a person at home (4.7 billion euros). Beyond these significant expenses, the Court noted a "multitude of smaller measures, the effectiveness, relevance or impact of which have not been established". "In addition, for more than 254 tax expenditures, the administration has no estimate of the number of beneficiaries," she points out.
Funds without legal personality (FSPJ), financial vehicles controlled by the State but whose management is entrusted to third parties, are once again in the viewfinder of the magistrates of the rue Cambon. The Court regrets in particular that "the resources allocated annually to the funds do not appear in the State budget" and are "not systematically accounted for by the managing body" and may therefore "be presented neither to Parliament nor to the authorities of decision of the managing bodies ”.
Two funds canceled in 2020
While she has already advocated the “ordering” of these 150 or so funds, she notes that this “has not resulted in precise monitoring of these funds (…) nor in the definition of a strategy for reordering in order ". Only two of them have thus been removed by the initial finance law for 2020.
Created in 2018, this 10 billion euros fund for innovation and industry (FII) must generate annual revenues of 250 million euros to secure the financing of innovation. The FII "is maintained even though it has only funded companies up to 20% of its objectives for the period 2018-2019" points the Court, already very critical of the creation of this fund, which it judges to be complex operation. "The FII has not brought any added value compared to traditional budgetary circuits", she asserts again.
Abolition of posts in the National Education
Of the 240 million euros in commitments programmed in 2018 and 2019, the balance sheet amounts to "only 7.6 million euros in actual commitments and 0.6 million euros in actual disbursements, or 1% of the total, "notes the Court. It is also concerned about its financing in the future, with the postponement of the privatization of Aéroports de Paris (ADP) which was to come to abound it.
Last year, the government cut 3,600 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in the public service, "2,029 more job cuts than the planned scheme" in the initial finance law (LFI) at the end of 2018, notes the Court. . The difference mainly comes from the Ministry of National Education, which recorded job cuts "for the first time since 2012" (- 3,816 FTE compared to - 1,800 planned in LFI). Other ministries with a negative balance, those of the Economy and Finance and of Action and of public accounts. Conversely, the creation of posts is significant in the Ministries of the Interior and of Justice (approximately +2,500 FTE).
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