France: search of the French premises of the private firm McKinsey

The police leave the building housing McKinsey & Company France, this Tuesday, May 24, 2022 in Paris.

AP - Michel Spinler

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

Rebound in the McKinsey affair, named after the American consulting firm to which the French state regularly used for five years under Macron.

The national financial prosecutor's office searched the Paris premises of the company, suspected of money laundering aggravated by tax evasion.

An investigation opened at the end of March, following the controversy which splashed the presidential campaign of the head of state.

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The McKinsey company would have paid no corporate tax between 2011 and 2020, thanks to a tax package.

This was concluded by the Senate commission of inquiry into the influence of private consulting firms on public policy, in its report published last March.

The American company then defended itself by asserting that one of its subsidiaries had indeed paid its due to France during the period cited by the parliamentarians.

At the time

, Emmanuel Macron came to the rescue of McKinsey.

According to him, the situation was explained by the tax rules in force.

Checks made, the national financial prosecutor's office had finally

on March 31.

The announcement had fallen just a few days before the presidential election, at the end of a campaign marked in particular by this McKinsey controversy.

🔴 Ongoing search at the French headquarters of the consulting firm McKinsey, suspected of tax optimization

➡️ https://t.co/lcatsiIFcu pic.twitter.com/BBLGXxtxH4

– The Parisian (@le_Parisian) May 24, 2022

The suspicions of tax fraud were all the more shocking since, according to the senators' report, the number of contracts concluded between the State and several consulting firms more than doubled between 2018 and 2021, reaching a record of more than one. billion euros last year.

French journalist Matthieu Aron co-wrote an investigation into the influence of consulting firms.

 was published by Allary editions last February.

In my opinion, the investigators are looking for the key to a mystery: the fact that McKinsey, who for ten years did not pay tax on profits in France, when he had, and that, c This is what the Senate commission of inquiry had established, a fairly significant turnover in France, since around the year 2021, the consulting firm achieved around 330 million in turnover.

Under these conditions, how could McKinsey declare a profit of zero?

It's curiosity.

This is a possible and probable tax optimization mechanism.

Matthieu Aron, co-author of the “Les infliltrés” survey

Marie Casadebaig

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