Five banks, including Société Générale and BNP Paribas, are suspected of having helped their foreign clients to evade tax on dividends.
By LL with AFP
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PSeveral searches took place on Tuesday in five French banking establishments in Paris and La Défense on suspicion of aggravated tax evasion, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) said on Tuesday, confirming information from the Monde.
According to the public prosecutor, these operations are carried out by 150 investigators from Bercy, 16 French magistrates and 6 Germans, within the framework of investigations opened on December 16 and 17, 2021 by the PNF on “CumCum”, a tax scheme on dividends whose damage for the States would amount to more than one hundred billion euros. Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, Exane (a subsidiary of BNP), Natixis and HSBC are targeted, according to The world.
A spokesperson for Société Générale confirmed to AFP that a search had been underway at the group’s headquarters since Tuesday morning, without knowing what the purpose was. The other banks did not respond to AFP immediately.
According to the public prosecutor, “some of these investigations follow a complaint”, filed at the end of 2018 by a collective “Citizens in an organized gang” around the boss of PS deputies Boris Vallaud, “or a mandatory denunciation from the tax administration”. , which dates according to The world end of 2021.
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140 billion euros over twenty years
The daily also affirms that the General Directorate of Public Finance (DGFip) “made its first tax adjustments at the end of 2021” concerning some of these banks “for sums counting in tens, even hundreds of millions of euros”.
Asked by AFP, the DGFip did not comment. Neither customs nor Bercy had responded immediately either. A group of sixteen media revealed in 2018 via the “CumEx Files” these suspicions of giant tax fraud.
The amount, initially estimated at 55 billion euros, had been significantly increased in 2021 by the consortium, rising to 140 billion euros over twenty years. The so-called “CumCum” practice in financial jargon consists of escaping the tax on dividends which must in principle be paid by foreign holders of shares in listed French companies.
To take advantage of the scheme, these owners of shares, small savers or large investment funds, entrust their securities to a bank when the tax is collected, thus escaping taxation. The banks would have played an intermediary role, while charging a commission to the holders of shares.