Question 5573 — taxes and duties

Summary

Mr. Aurélien Le Coq questions the Minister to the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, responsible for public accounts, about the abandonment by the tax administration of proceedings against Vivendi. According to an article in Le Canard chainé dated March 26, 2025, Vivendi, owned by the Bolloré group and billionaire Vincent Bolloré, would have benefited from the tax authorities waiving a penalty of 320 million euros. In 2004, Vivendi sold its subsidiary Vivendi Universal Entertainment to General Electric for 8 billion euros, including 5 billion paid in shares recognized as “portfolio securities”. On the resale of these securities, Vivendi recorded a loss of 2.4 billion euros, recorded as a loss carryforward, allowing a saving of 800 million euros on future taxes. However, according to the tax authorities, these shares were not securities portfolio but simple “equity securities” not giving right to a deduction of losses. Given Vivendi's control of tax legislation, the administration considered this to be a "deliberate error" and penalized the group up to 40% of the amount of tax avoided: i.e. a fine of 320 million euros. In this article, however, it appears that the administration has waived this penalty. To date, neither the administration nor the ministry have provided an answer to this simple question: at a time when the Government is organizing austerity in public services and picking the pockets of the poorest, why have they abandoned the recovery of a penalty of 320 million euros taken against a group deliberately evading taxes? He wants to know the answer to this question.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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