An unexpected movement of fraud in tax reductions and credits, since 2020: this observation is made by the tax administration itself, even if the terms are those of the Court of Auditors, which published this week a report on the detection of personal tax fraud.
7070 suspicious transfers prevented in the space of one year, in 2022, for 35 million euros in tax fraud quickly. Is around 5,000 euros of attempted fraud on average for each household caught by the tax patrolas reported The echoes, who spotted this figure in this report on the detection of personal tax fraud, published Wednesday, November 15. The Court of Auditors highlights an unexpected movement of fraud in tax reductions and credits observed since 2020: The DGFiP estimates that fraud in tax reductions and credits increased in 2021 and 2022without producing an estimate of its scale or an assessment of the actions to recover the sums irregularly paid, points out the Court of Auditors, before providing the only figures given below.
Confirmation of information published in the summer of 2023 by MoneyVox: Anne Guyot-Welke, national secretary of Solidaires Finances Publiques, the first union of the DGFiP, claimed to have reported a certain fraud caused by the remote correction of declarations, correction tool open until mid-December, particularly with the question of tax reductions and credits.
Income tax. Forgetfulness, error or tax strategy? Why corrections are increasing
The General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFiP) then chose to put things into perspective, while confirming in a response provided by MoneyVox its fight against attempts to evade tax refunds: the DGFiP recalled that the online process for filing declarations initial, in the spring, and corrective, each summer and fall, were the subject of a significant strengthening in 2022 through various IT controls to anticipate fraud attempts.
The report of the Court of Auditors does not provide the menu of details of the frauds on credits and reductions observed, but considers that the phenomenon of fraud on reductions and tax credits increased suddenly with the levy at the source of the tax on income and the implementation of the prepayment of 60% of the tax credits of the previous year in January [avance sur les crdits et rductions, NDLR] of each year. According to the Court of Auditors, fraud thus moves upstream of the annual tax declaration.
A large and unjustified amount of expenses qualifying for tax reduction
The 3 techniques of these new fraudsters
The fraud more particularly targeted by the DGFiP, however, takes place well during the annual declaration, online, in the spring: The fraud is carried out via the income declaration by mentioning a large and unjustified amount of expenses qualifying for reduction of tax. As a reminder, the average fraud detected in 2022 was 5,000 euros.
Some fraudsters have accomplices, in order to justify the expenses giving rise to tax advantages: The fraudulent declaration maybe filed by a third party with the consent of the user, the third party being compensated by the repayment of a part of the amount illegally collected.
Another scenario: the fraud takes place after hacking of the online account of a user whose identity is then stolen (the latter’s bank account, known to the tax administration, is also modified to divert the refund).
Third and final method detailed by the Court of Auditors: fraudsters create a fictitious user allowing you to enter a declaration online.
What prevention measures are there to face this new tax fraud?
The Court of Auditors does not provide details on how the DGFiP operates to identify credit and tax reduction fraudsters. But she points out that households with fraud no longer benefit from the mid-January advance: since 2022, there has been a blocking of the advance on tax reduction and credit (RICI) in year N+1 for fraudsters detected in year N.
The fight against personal tax fraud will be intensified, using new methods. The Court of Auditors also recalls that the DGFiP will work better to quantify this fraud: The government announced, on May 9, 2023, the creation of a council for the evaluation of fraud with compulsory deductions and the contract of objectives and means 2023-2027 of the DGFiP plans to define a methodology to assess preventive fraud.
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