While he has already lost 4 to 5 billion euros in one year, the owner of SFR and BFMTV would be subject to a tax adjustment of 7.5 billion.
From our correspondent in Geneva, Ian Hamel
Published on
– Modified
En last october, Point recalled that the Frenchman Pierre Castel, accused of “tax evasion” by the Geneva tax authorities, risked receiving a slate of 422 million euros. Finally, this tax adjustment would only be “peanuts” compared to the slate demanded by this same canton of Geneva from the Franco-Israeli businessman Patrick Drahi: 7.4 billion Swiss francs, or 7.53 billion euros. euros. Half of this would be tax arrears (from 2009 to 2016), and the other half penalties.
Switzerland was not, until now, in the habit of inflicting such sanctions on its wealthy foreign residents. Don’t the rich come precisely to the shores of Lake Geneva or Zurich to escape the greed of the tax authorities, especially French? Like Gérard Wertheimer (fashion, watchmaking, perfumes), whose fortune is estimated between 39 and 40 billion, or even the families of Rothschild, Baud, Bahadourian, Dauphin. Would the white-crossed tax inspectors start looking for lice in the fleece of the wealthy?
The rich love the Swiss peaks
This is counting without the wars that oppose the cantons in their hunt for great fortunes. If Geneva remains the most sought-after canton, it suffers from the narrowness of its territory (282.5 km2), compared to 3,212 square kilometers for the canton of Vaud, and 5,224 square kilometers for that of Valais. It is difficult to find a park there, and even a large garden. The Heidi.news site, which reveals the story, recounts the successive moves of Patrick Drahi in the Confederation. First in Geneva, he then moved to the canton of Vaud, then to that of Valais, to settle in Zermatt, a posh ski resort at 1,600 meters above sea level, at the foot of Mount Matterhorn. The owner of SFR, BFMTV and RMC bought several chalets there. We remember that Johnny Hallyday also loved the mountains. He had settled in Gstaad, in the canton of Bern.
READ ALSOHappy as a billionaire in Europe! Only then, Patrick Drahi is separated from his wife who lives in the canton of… Geneva? Admittedly, they are well separated “in body and in good” since 2005, but “the two were married religiously in 2014 and have not ceased to be seen together for 17 years”, assures Heidi.news. If this separation was only purely formal, “then the husband’s package could fall, because his wife was domiciled in one of their residences in Cologny, near Geneva, with ordinary taxation”.
A debt of 23 billion
In Switzerland, the foreigner, beneficiary of a fixed tax, does not pay a tax calculated on his income and on his fortune, but on the sevenfold “of the rental value of the accommodation which the interested party occupies and which he owns” . As a result, a billionaire is only taxed on an amount of 4,000 to 500,000 Swiss francs.
It’s definitely a very bad season for Patrick Drahi. At the beginning of December, the monthly With, which lists the 300 richest in Switzerland, revealed that in 2022 he had lost 4 to 5 billion Swiss francs, and that his fortune had fallen between 6 and 7 billion. That is less than what the Geneva tax authorities claim from him… Not to mention a debt of 23 billion for the boss of SFR, particularly in communications.