While the government is seeking ten billion euros in budgetary savings to contain the spiraling public deficit, a proposed transpartisan law could bring in nearly three billion to the State per year from next year.
According to information from World, a text of law signed by more than thirty parliamentarians from diverse political backgrounds – centrists, La France insoumise (LFI), socialists, ecologists, communists and Les Républicains – should be tabled simultaneously in the National Assembly and the Senate, Friday 26 april. It aims to put an end to the so-called “CumCum” fraud, “a subject of public interest capable of uniting beyond party logic”declare Orne senator Nathalie Goulet (Centrist Union) and Moselle MP Charlotte Leduc (LFI), at the origin of the text.
Behind this Latin name hides an elaborate tactic, allowing owners of shares in French companies not resident in France to escape withholding tax on dividends, thanks to the help of banks and traders organizing round-trips. returns of actions between abroad and France. The aim is to temporarily entrust the shares held by these non-residents, just until the dividend is paid, to entities exempt from this tax – French banks, or companies established in States where French dividends are not. taxed, like Qatar or Saudi Arabia, thanks to favorable tax treaties.
The position of the tax authorities weakened
Rejecting any fraud, the banking lobby speaks of a legitimate activity of “dividend arbitrage”, necessary for operations on the financial markets, and without tax purposes. But the process weighs heavily on public finances, as revealed by the “CumEx Files” investigation, published by The world and eighteen European media in 2018. “The banks’ argument can no longer hold up in the budgetary context: it is outdatedestimates Nathalie Goulet. We are talking about pure tax fraud with people who get rid of their shares when the tax train passes.. » For her part, Charlotte Leduc calls for respect for the principle of equality before taxes: “Everyone must pay according to their means, this is what constitutes consent to taxunderlines the elected official. This is money stolen from taxpayers, we are in the spirit of the Attal plan against tax fraud. »
With their proposed law, parliamentarians intend to provide the tax administration with a clear and solid legal basis, to repress dividend arbitrage used for tax fraud purposes. Their initiative is timely, because the French tax authorities, which identified “CumCum” in 2017 and have already launched a salvo of adjustments against several large banks in France, saw its legal position recently weakened by a judicial decision.
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