Minister for Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave welcomed on Wednesday a “historic” assessment of the fight against hidden work in 2023, with 1.2 billion euros in adjustments made by Urssaf, putting forward a target of 5 billion by 2027 .
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who launched a vast anti-fraud plan in 2023 when he was in the Public Accounts, announced this assessment at the beginning of March. During a trip to the Vosges, he stressed that adjustments for undeclared work reached nearly 1.2 billion euros, compared to around 800 million in 2022, without going into details.
As the Prime Minister mentioned recently, the results of the fight against hidden work are historic in 2023, declared Mr. Cazenave, during an exchange with the press ahead of a trip to Urssaf Nord-Pas -from Calais Lille.
These 1.2 billion, the equivalent of 68 million consultations with the general practitioner, according to Urssaf calculations, represent an increase of 50% compared to 2022, underlined the minister.
It is also 400 million euros more than the objective set by Urssaf, he added, stressing that by 2027, the objective is to reach five billion euros in adjustments for hidden work.
The adjustments, the average amount of which is 200,000 euros, break down as follows, detailed Mr. Cazenave: 814 million euros for undeclared contributions and 362 million euros for the application of sanctions ( increases in adjustments, challenges to reductions in exemptions).
In terms of adjustments, 61% concern the construction sector (716 million) ahead of business services (23%) and commerce (4.2%), specified Urssaf.
There is a substantial gap between the amounts of the adjustments (the creation of a debt required of the fraudulent employer) and the amounts actually recovered, which go into the Social Security funds.
In 2023, around 80 million euros have been recovered and the challenge now for us (…) is to increase the amounts that are actually recovered, noted Mr. Cazenave.
The effects of the historic adjustments of 2023 will be seen in the following years, but we have also decided to strengthen the provisions which allow us to better recover, he affirmed.
He announced two decrees between now and May in this regard: one concerns liquidations sometimes carried out to avoid collections and aims to ensure that tax and social obligations have been fulfilled upstream, the other on the universal transmission of heritage which is sometimes the subject of abuse.