Le Figaro Bordeaux
Who will pay the bill for the future high-speed rail link between Bordeaux and Toulouse?
A special equipment tax, intended to finance the Société du Grand Projet du Sud-Ouest (GPSO), will be implemented from 2023 in several thousand municipalities.
A decree published in the Official Journal on January 1, 2023 specifies which New Aquitaine municipalities will be concerned.
While the exact individual amount is not yet known, this tax is expected to bring in 24 million euros per year and be levied over many decades.
The following are concerned: persons, natural or legal, subject to property tax, housing tax on second homes and business property tax.
14.3 billion to finance the future LGV
All taxable municipalities are located less than an hour's drive from a station served by the future LGV.
This method of calculation therefore allows certain cities, such as Andernos (Gironde) or Biscarrosse (Gironde) to be spared this new tax.
This list is published even though several elected officials are asking that the current railway lines be renovated to allow the passage of fast trains at a lower cost.
It is in this sense that the mayors of Bordeaux, Bayonne and Irun demand in an open letter "
an urgent modernization of the existing railway line between Bordeaux and Irun
" to better serve the territory.
The Grand Sud-Ouest rail project provides for the creation of two new high-speed lines, which would save an hour's journey between Bordeaux and Toulouse and twenty minutes between Bordeaux and Dax, but at the cost of expensive new rail facilities .
The initial cost is approximately 14.3 billion: 40% will be borne by the State, partly through this new tax, 40% by the local authorities of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie regions, and 20% by the European Union.
