“Bercy has accounts to ask”, according to the vice-president of the Senate finance committee

“Bercy has accounts to ask these banks”, launches Wednesday, March 29 on France Inter Éric Bocquet, vice-president of the Senate finance committee, the day after the searches carried out in five banks in Paris and La Défense. These searches by Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Exane, Natixis and HSBC were carried out as part of five investigations opened in 2021 for “aggravated tax fraud laundering” and some for “aggravated tax fraud” after the revelations of the fraud scheme said “CumCum” by the newspaper The world in 2018.

The communist senator from the North Éric Bocquet welcomes this progress in the file: “Finally it’s moving”, he greets. He recalls that “from 2018, the Senate mobilized immediately to table an amendment, adopted unanimously, to thwart these illicit practices; unfortunately it was emptied of its content by the National Assembly”. He therefore estimates, five years later, that “the Senate was right in 2018”.

“Criminal at the criminal level”

Éric Bocquet denounces this “combined” Who “consists for foreign shareholders holding shares in French companies to offload to the banks, searched yesterday, artificially and provisionally the day before the arbitration of dividends”. Through this so-called “CumCum” scheme, these shareholders recover “a few days later the shares, which allows them to escape the tax due in relation to the payment of dividends”, explains Éric Bocquet. A device “totally illegal”, he is indignant. The communist senator believes that this device represents “17 billion euros lost by France for many years”. “In 2018, we were talking about losses of 1 to 3 billion euros each year”he adds.

The vice-president of the Senate Finance Committee denies the argument of the banks, which on the contrary claim that it is an optimization. “The two practices of optimization and tax evasion consist in causing the Republic’s budget to lose billions of euros, it is unacceptable in both cases”he replies.

For Éric Bocquet, these “banks are accountable to the French tax authorities”especially as they do “part of the 15 banks specializing in Treasury securities, i.e. authorized by Bercy to manage our debt securities on the financial markets”. He therefore considers that “If the elements allow it, France should not hesitate to take action at the criminal level”.