The financial results of Shell and TotalEnergies on Thursday reignited the debate on “super-profits” with the announcement, between them, of more than 13 billion dollars in profits in three months, fueled by the rise in energy prices that suffocate the daily purchasing power of consumers.
In detail: 6.6 billion dollars of net profit in the third quarter for the French giant and 6.7 billion for Shell. Both benefit from the surge in oil and gas prices after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
At the same time, inflation has reached record levels in Europe, with almost 10% in the euro zone in September, and the economy is slowing down.
This has fuelled the debate on the taxation of these windfall profits and how they should be shared with employees – a subject also brought to the fore by the long strike at TotalEnergies’ French refineries, which continues to cause fuel shortages at service stations.
“Employees are right to demand 10% wage increases” after this 43% year-over-year jump in quarterly profits, tweeted French MP Thomas Portes of La France Insoumise (LFI).
– Salaries and dividends –
The head of the French socialist senators, Patrick Kanner, suggested for his part that TotalEnergies “participate in the national effort to enable the poorest to cope with the inflationary crisis”.
“So much the better,” said the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire, reminding on the channel BFM Business that the exceptional profits allowed in particular to finance a discount at the pump, “to increase wages” and “to give a 13th month to employees”, as the group has announced.
The company also signed a wage increase agreement in France to end the strike at its refineries, which is still going on at two sites.
However, at the end of September, TotalEnergies announced a special dividend of $2.62 billion to its shareholders in order to “share with its shareholders the company’s results in this context of high prices”.
In another form of shareholder reward, Shell will buy back $4 billion worth of shares by the end of the year – enough to boost the stock price and return money to investors.
“While Shell continues to cash in billions, how many more households will be pushed into fuel poverty before the government reacts?” the NGO Greenpeace in the UK also reacted.
– European tax –
“We will tax them,” assured the French Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal on Franceinfo, referring to the European contribution of “solidarity” that should allow to tax, for 2022, in particular the refining activities.
The Observatory of Multinationals estimates that the group should pay between 40 and 65 million dollars in taxes in France in 2022 under this European mechanism, “barely 0.2% of global profits”, and “640 million to 1 billion dollars” for the EU.
For its part, TotalEnergies estimates that it would have to pay a contribution of €1 billion this year in six EU countries, if it were introduced.
Shell’s boss had already called for additional taxes in early October and said on Thursday he “accepts” that “governments should intervene” when “many people in society are suffering” from inflation.
The boss assured that the group was working with the various governments in Europe on the form that such an exceptional tax could take.
But in the United Kingdom, where such a tax is already in place, the oil giant has so far paid nothing because of high investments – a mechanism that allows to erase this “windfall tax”, criticized for this reason as largely insufficient.
