Question 14758 — pensions: independent and special schemes

Summary

Mr. Antoine Valentin draws the attention of the Minister of Action and Public Accounts to the consequences, for multi-pension cross-border retirees residing in France, of the administrative doctrine established by rescript BOI-RES-RSA-000219 of the general directorate of public finances. These retirees, who have contributed throughout their working lives to the French and foreign social security systems, benefit until recently from a mechanism for capping social contributions, CSG, CRDS and CASA, limiting their base to the amount of the pension paid by the French regime. This mechanism, resulting from the Nikula case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, constituted an elementary protection of proportionality between the levies required and the rights actually available under the French regime. By its decision no. 473997 of October 25, 2024, the Council of State has ruled that the provisions of Article 30 of Regulation (EC) No. 883/2004, in their current wording, do not require the competent Member State to limit the amount of social contributions up to the pension it pays. Asked about the consequences of this decision by written question no. 03301 from Senator Schillinger, the Government responded, in its response published in the Official Journal of the Senate on May 15, 2025, that the decision of the Council of State was limited to pensions paid in capital and that the Nikula cap remained applicable to pensions paid in the form of an annuity. However, the rescript BOI-RES-RSA-000219, subsequently published by the general directorate of public finances, explicitly contradicts this position. It indicates that pensions from foreign sources are now subject to social contributions “without their holder can benefit from any capping", whether these pensions are paid as an annuity or in capital. It expressly specifies that the ministerial response “is reported in its contrary” to these new details. The Government therefore, by means of an administrative rescript, officially retracted a response that it had itself provided to Parliament a few weeks earlier. This situation is unprecedented in its form and particularly serious in its effects: retirees who had relied on the assurances given by the Government to the national representation are today exposed to deductions without ceiling on their entire pensions, including for the current financial years. Please note that this development is not the result of any decision by the French legislator. It results from the change in wording introduced during the transition from Regulation No. 1408/71 to Regulation No. 883/2004, applied to Franco-Swiss relations since 2012, without Parliament ever having to decide on the removal of the protection from which these retirees benefited. The rescript itself recognizes that European Union law does not prevent France from reestablishing a capping mechanism by legislative means. Consequently, the MP asks the Government to specify, on the one hand, the reasons why the position expressed in the ministerial response was retracted by way of rescript without any prior information having been brought to the attention of Parliament; on the other hand, if the Government intends to take measures to protect multi-pension cross-border retirees from the retroactive effects of this change in doctrine; and finally, if the Government is willing to support a legislative initiative aimed at restoring, in national law, the capping mechanism that the change in European regulations removed without the national representation having deliberated.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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