British owners of French holiday homes can breathe a “sigh of relief”. Plans to introduce a new property tax from January have been dropped, says Lorna Bourke on Citywire. French MPs approved the law, but President Sarkozy removed it via an amendment, due to concerns that it would generate bad publicity.
The new tax might also be challenged under European law as “a ‘discrimination’ against non-residents and a barrier to the free movement of capital”, says John Lichfield in The Independent.
About 180,000 second home owners from Britain would have been obliged to pay a tax of 20% of the theoretical annual ‘rental value’ of the property, whether or not it was let. Houses rented out full-time would have been exempt.