Several searches are underway on Tuesday in five French banking establishments Paris and La Défense, including Société Générale and BNP Paribas, on suspicion of aggravated tax evasion, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) said on Tuesday, confirming information from Le Monde.
These operations are part of five preliminary investigations opened on December 16 and 17, 2021 on the count of aggravated money laundering of aggravated tax evasion, and for some of aggravated tax evasion, relating to the fraud scheme known as cumcuma tax scheme on dividends, said the PNF.
The ongoing operations, which required several months of preparation, are being carried out by 16 magistrates from the PNF and more than 150 investigators from the judicial finance investigation service (SEJF), in the presence of six German prosecutors from the Cologne public prosecutor’s office involved in the framework of European judicial cooperation, added the public minister.
BNP Paribasz, Socit Generale, HSBC viss
Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, Exane (a subsidiary of BNP), Natixis and HSBC are targeted, according to The world. A spokesperson for Societe Generale confirmed to AFP that a search had been underway at the group’s headquarters since Tuesday morning, without knowing what the object was. The other banks did not respond to AFP immediately.
According to the public prosecutor, these investigations follow for some a complaint, filed at the end of 2018 by a collective Citizens in band organized around the boss of the PS deputies Boris Vallaud, or a compulsory denunciation of the tax administration, which would date according to Le Monde from the end of 2021.
tax relief
The daily also claims 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 the tens or even hundreds of millions of euros.
Requested by AFP, the DGFip has no 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 evasion.
The amount, initially valued 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 shares 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 the shares.
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