The head of government also welcomed “historic records” in the recovery of fraud in social benefits and contributions.
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“It’s more than ever in our history”, assures Gabriel Attal. Collections for tax fraud reached 15.2 billion euros in 2023 (after 14.6 billion in 2022), announced the Prime Minister on Wednesday March 20. “These results are historic (…) we have never tracked fraud so much”insisted the head of government during a press conference at the Ministry of the Economy. “Last year we increased tax audits by 25% and the number of tax searches increased by 30%”he congratulated himself again.
“We prefer to increase the pressure on fraudsters, rather than increase taxes on the French”, launched Gabriel Attal. Moreover, “for the first time, we have exceeded the 2 billion euros mark of social fraud detected in one year”announced the Prime Minister, specifying that “the recovery of benefit fraud has exceeded one billion euros and contribution fraud has also exceeded one billion euros”, “two historic records”.
“Increased sanctions”
The government hopes to further increase collections in the future. For this, Gabriel Attal promised on the one hand “strengthen human resources by 2027” in the fight against tax fraud. In details, “281 agents were recruited last year, and 350 will be recruited in 2024”, he specifies. Concerning social fraud, the head of government wants to recruit a thousand agents by 2027 and announced to increase the Urssaf recovery objectives to 5.5 billion over the five-year period, compared to 5 billion previously.
The head of government is also betting on a “heightening of sanctions”, “thanks to measures voted in the 2024 budget”. Since January 1, “those who incite fraud are punished by two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros”recalled Gabriel Attal. “Those who propose online fraud schemes are punished with five years in prison and 500 000 fine euros”, he added. He also judged “priority” the merger project between the Vitale card and the identity card, which he launched when he was Minister of Public Accounts, to fight against social fraud.