During the confinement, the French consumed a lot of press and news. We had to keep abreast of the progress of the epidemic, and also simply take care.
But if the containment allowed newspapers and websites to experience a dramatic increase in their readership, the phenomenon was unfortunately accompanied by an equally brutal drop in advertising revenue. This is the aftermath of the health crisis: advertisers have cut the tap on their advertising budgets while the economy is idling. The government will propose new aid for press publishers.
Pubic paralysis
In the new finance bill for 2020, an amendment provides for the creation of a tax credit for the first subscription to a newspaper, a periodical publication or an online press service of political and general information. The text provides that the measure does not apply to online press kiosks, such as Cafeyn or ePresse.
This aid is means-tested: it is intended for the less well-off households. To benefit from it, the taxpayer must on the one hand be domiciled in France, and on the other hand the reference income of the tax household must be less than 10,000 euros for a share of family quotient (each additional half-share raises the limit of 25%). The tax credit, granted once per tax household, would be equal to 50% of the expenses borne by the taxpayer to subscribe at least one year to a publication.
The tax credit ceiling is 50 euros per tax household. The aid can be activated until December 31, 2022. It is not direct aid, the government will therefore not send a check for 50 euros to taxpayers to subscribe to a site or a newspaper. However, this tax boost remains significant and should be very useful in supporting press publishers in difficulty.
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