The anti-fraud tax law garners its first results

Saint-Denis (AFP)

A year after the vote on the anti-fraud law, the state begins to make the accounts: in the first nine months of 2019, it recovered 5.6 billion euros in the fight against tax fraud, a figure significantly higher over a year.

According to figures released Wednesday by the Minister of Public Accounts Gérald Darmanin, the state has earned from January to September 40% more than last year over the same period.

"The strategy against tax fraud (...) is a priority wanted by the President of the Republic and this strategy works. (...) The figures demonstrate," said Mr. Darmanin presenting the assessment of the law fraud.

This law, voted last year, has notably relaxed the "lock Bercy", device that gave the tax administration the monopoly of prosecution in case of fraud. From now on, it is obliged to transmit to the justice the facts of more serious frauds, higher than 100,000 euros.

Over the first nine months of the year, this easing resulted in 587 disclosures, which correspond to about 211 million euros in fees and penalties.

"The administration wasted no time" in enforcing the law, welcomed Gerald Darmanin, adding that the efficiency in tax recovery is "a popular demand" that the government has heard.

To these denunciations are added 481 complaint filings after favorable opinion of the Commission of fiscal offenses and 38 complaints for presumption of fraud. In total, the judicial authority was seized more than 1,100 times between January 1 and September 30, twice more than last year on the same date.

Other provisions of the anti-fraud law have their first effects, such as the creation of a Public Interest Judicial Convention (CJIP) procedure, which allows a company to negotiate a fine without trial and without going through a procedure. to "plead guilty". Used twice this year, it has helped recover from Google 465 million euros (in addition to a fine of 500 million euros).

A provision denounced by some, like the MP for the North (PCF) Fabien Roussel, who regrets in a statement that "multinationals are (no longer) litigants like others", and denounces overall an act "shell empty" , except for the lightening of the "lock of Bercy", which allows "only to pick up some crumbs".

- tax police -

In addition, the law expands the mechanism of "guilty plea" to the tax field, with 9 procedures since the beginning of the year.

"These are two instruments for which we are achieving tremendous success," commented Jean-François Bohnert, the head of the National Financial Procuratorate (PNF), which is back to the most complex files. Three times more cases resulting from complaints are reported to the PNF in six months, he added.

Through this law, Bercy also had in July a "tax police", the Service of judicial investigations of the finances (SEJF) charged to fight against the fiscal delinquency. Other measures in place or to come have not yet been evaluated, such as the new reporting obligations of online platforms, the publication of administrative sanctions or the declaration of cross-border optimization schemes.

These provisions are in addition to the technical advances put in place by Bercy, with the use of data mining to cross tax information of several files. EUR 640 million has already been recovered through this system this year.

The phenomenon of tax evasion remains poorly evaluated. Faced with very diverse estimates (between 80 and 100 billion euros according to the union Solidaires public finances), Prime Minister Edouard Philippe asked the Court of Auditors to provide him with a precise inventory of the situation. His report is expected in November. The government has also planned to create an Observatory of tax fraud.

© 2019 AFP