The state recovered 10.7 billion euros last year following tax audits, which have almost their record level of 2019, before the health crisis, during which the controls had largely dropped. In 2020, 7.8 billion euros had been recovered, compared to 11 billion euros in 2019, a record.
In total, the amount of taxes evaded and claimed by the tax authorities from individuals and businesses amounted to 13.4 billion euros in 2021, according to data from the General Directorate of Public Finance (DGFiP), compared to 8, 7 billion euros in 2020 and 11.4 billion in 2019.
These “very good results” stem from “the efforts undertaken for several years by the DGFiP to strengthen its arsenal of mass data analysis (datamining) which, by cross-referencing the numerous data held by the tax administration, makes it possible to always better target tax audits, ”says the Ministry of Public Accounts in a press release.
Data mining
Thus, 45% of the controls initiated in 2021 were after the use of datamining, which ultimately resulted in the notification of 1.2 billion euros in duties and penalties, out of the 13.4 billion euros notified overall. . Last year, the tax authorities notably targeted VAT fraud and asset fraud, he specifies.
France has strengthened its arsenal in the fight against tax fraud in recent years, in particular with a dedicated law of 2018, which created a “tax police”, extended the “guilty plea” to the tax field and relaxed the “Bercy lock”. », which now obliges the tax administration to transmit to justice the facts of fraud exceeding 100,000 euros.
1,620 files sent to the public prosecutor’s offices
Thus last year there were more than 1,200 mandatory denunciations of acts of tax evasion transmitted to the public prosecutor’s offices, i.e. 25% more than in 2019, for an amount of rights “of the order of 540 million euros” .
“A total of 1,620 tax evasion files (tax evasion + tax fraud) were sent to the prosecutor’s office, to which are added 2,500 complaints for solidarity fund fraud,” summarizes the ministry.
8,000 companies have been asked for unduly paid public aid, while a priori checks on the solidarity fund have made it possible to dismiss more than 2.54 million unfounded requests representing more than 10 billion euros in payments.
Rise of the right to error
As for the measures aimed at improving relations between the administration and companies in the logic of the “right to error”, they have continued to gain momentum slowly.
More than 800 SMEs are now in a logic of personalized support, compared to around fifty at the end of October 2019, 10 large companies and mid-sized companies entered the new tax partnership service last year. They were 39 at the start of 2021, out of a target of 63 at the end of 2022, and an eligible potential of 5,800 ETIs and 287 large companies.