PARIS: The French milling industry, penalized by the bad harvests of wheat calling on the authorities to remove the “flour tax”.
The weather, which has hit flooded harvests, as well as the lack of light, have seriously degraded the quantity and quality of French wheat this year giving rise to a “very worrying situation”, according to Bernard Valluis, National Association of French Milling (ANMF).
Even the world record harvest, which has caused prices to fall, does not seem likely to reassure flour producers: “wheat prices are generally depressed because of an overabundant world crop, but on the French physical market, Pay the collecting agencies relatively large premiums in order to obtain a commodity that corresponds to the mill specifications, “explains Valluis.
In the case of small grains, poorly packed, and in certain areas of production, the development of fungi, which affected the quality of the crops and reduced yields with less flour produced for the same quantity of wheat.
The French millers therefore want more than ever the abolition of the “flour tax”, which they have been demanding for several years, putting forward a “distortion of competition” with foreign millers: “All our action today aims to the finance bill contains a governmental provision to abolish this tax, “said Bernard Valluis.
This tax, at the rate of € 15.24 per tonne of wheat (rate unchanged since 1993) paid by the millers, represents, according to the ANMF, 64 million euros per year. An amount “higher than the gross operating surplus (Ebitda) of the whole mill, which is of the order of 58 million”. Established in 1962 to finance the supplementary budget for agricultural social benefits, it is collected for the benefit of insured persons of the Mutualité sociale agricole, MSA,
Despite the concentration movements that have taken place in recent years and which have led to the closure of a number of mills, the sector still employs some 6,000 people in France. Last June, a parliamentary information mission on the taxation of agri-food products called for the abolition of the flour tax on the menu of the next finance law, in a comprehensive overhaul of food taxes.
