2023-10-21 18:05:26
Isabelle Adjani, at the Festival de la fiction, in La Rochelle, September 16, 2022. XAVIER LEOTY / AFP
We don’t know what Isabelle Adjani’s response would have been to the dry remark made by the public prosecutor: “Before being a public figure, Isabelle Adjani is a citizen subject to duties. » The actress, tried for tax fraud and money laundering on Thursday October 19, did not appear before her judges. An escape all the less appreciated since, for the occasion, the largest room of the Paris court had been reserved for him. At the mention of a medical certificate signed by a New York practitioner and a late reservation of a New York-Paris plane ticket, supposed to prove the good faith of the famous litigant, the face of the president s ‘is closed. “It’s surprising… Madame Adjani is ill, but she books a ticket two days before the trial, with an arrival scheduled two hours before the hearing, in economy class, while her outward ticket was first…”she noted.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers In court, Isabelle Adjani and her troubles with the tax administration
It’s not that often that celebrity tax disputes make it to court. In most cases, rather than passing through the public doors of a courtroom, they are discreetly settled in the office of a Bercy advisor, or even in that of the finance minister. Françoise Sagan, another major tax defaulter, had it better. As soon as a letter with the sinister tax administration letterhead was slipped into her mailbox or a bailiff showed up at her door, the writer sighed: “How boring! “, then called his friend François Mitterrand, at the Elysée. He charged the budget minister, Michel Charasse, with resolving the problem as best as possible.
The anecdote is reported in a wonderful series devoted to artists and the tax authorities, published in August 2017 in The Obs. Freed for the first time from her tax debt, Sagan did it again in 1999, but unfortunately for her, her friends were no longer in power. The tax authorities are demanding 6 million francs (635,000 euros) from him, including penalties. Very weakened, she did not appear at the hearing. His lawyer, Pierre Haïk, pleads for the “special personality” from your client: “To this day, she does not know the difference between 100 francs and 100 million francs! » Françoise Sagan was sentenced in February 2002 to a one-year suspended prison sentence and to pay her debt. She died two years later, leaving her only son to inherit her back taxes.
Actor Samy Naceri had chosen another strategy. Prosecuted in 2009, for having declared only a fifth of the income he had received, he made his judges smile: ” It’s not my thing. Put me in front of a camera, there’s no problem, but that…” He especially took care to clear the debt of 250,000 euros that he had with the tax authorities before appearing. This was taken into account by the court, which found him guilty, but exempted him from punishment.
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