The delicate direction of tax revenues from energy towards the ecological transition

This is an idea that regularly comes back into fashion: allocating energy taxes to ecological transition. On July 14, during his interview, Emmanuel Macron took it up on his own, indicating that he had asked that the state tax revenues on energy “go totally to the transition”. It would thus be a question of deflecting approximately 25 billion euros, of which the 18 billion corresponding to the product for the State of the internal consumption tax on energy products (TICPE).

But this proposal comes up against an obstacle: the principle of budgetary universality, which prevents the allocation of taxes. This rule prohibits the use of a given income to finance a given expenditure.