Provided for in the 2024 Budget, the tax on long-distance transport infrastructure has just been validated by the Constitutional Council this Thursday, December 28. It thus confirmed “the constitutionality of the tax on the operation of long-distance transport infrastructure”. Find out how this new tax works.
For several months the prospect of this new tax has fueled tensions between the State and motorway concessionaires. Motorway companies have debated this issue at length since the presentation of the 2024 Budget by the government on September 27. Article 15 of the initial text of the PLF 2024 therefore provides for taxing highways and airports, on the grounds that road and air transport, which is particularly polluting, must finance the ecological transition.
In this more than tense situation, the first French motorway concessionaire Vinci had estimated the cost of this tax at 260 million euros in 2024, explaining “contests this project contrary to the letter and spirit of the concession contracts ”, as reported by our colleagues at Capital. The Eiffage group, for its part, expected to implement “all avenues of appeal and all appropriate means in order to assert its rights”. The fact remains that at present, the Constitutional Council records long-distance travel as “those whose origin and destination are not included within the remit of the same mobility organizing authority”.
