Question 15481 — corporate tax

Summary

Ms. Sabine Rubin draws the attention of the Minister of the Economy and Finance to the absence of an investigation opened by the national financial prosecutor's office regarding the "Kering affair", a French luxury industry group over which there are significant suspicions of tax fraud. In December 2017, Italian justice initiated proceedings for tax evasion against Gucci, one of the largest subsidiaries of the French luxury group Kering, owned by Mr. Pinault. C'est nearly 1.3 billion euros which would have been subtracted from the Italian budget since 2009, through Luxury Goods Internationale (LGI), a Swiss subsidiary responsible for distribution and logistics, located in the canton of Ticino. However, a Médiapart investigation published in March 2018 revealed the extent of this tax evasion which, far from being limited to the Gucci subsidiary alone, would concern in particular the French subsidiaries Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. Nearly 2.5 billion euros would have been fraudulently collected by the Kering group. The MP can only express her astonishment at the timidity of the national financial prosecutor's office, particularly in view of the energetic action taken by the Italian neighbor. This while tax evasion and fraud represent a serious shortfall for the Nation's budget and undermine the consent of all citizens to tax, the foundation of any republican State. This affair has also given rise to a petition already signed by more than 16,000 people, which reflects the emotion of many French people in the face of these unfair practices. A case which takes place in a context of growing exasperation of citizens in the face of fiscal injustice, expressed by the so-called " Yellow vests” throughout the national territory. Certainly, the legislative system is still insufficiently armed to fight effectively against this type of practice, although its legality is dubious, deliberately breaking the civic and social pact. She is thinking in particular of the notion of “abuse of tax law”, which applied when it was proven that the incriminated practice was “solely tax”, which is not the case in this case. since LGI does indeed exist as a logistics platform, but whose volume of declared profits absolutely does not correspond to the real economic activity of the company. This notion of abuse of tax law has been broadened, an advance that should be welcomed, since it now involves criminalizing an “essentially tax” practice. This is why she wishes to know whether the national financial prosecutor's office has the intention to initiate proceedings, and the updating of the notion of tax abuse would make it possible to prosecute a group which has deliberately evaded its most basic civic obligations.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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