The French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, on Tuesday expressed his “indignation” concerning possible tax evasion operations carried out by several large French fortunes via trusts in Canada.
“I share your indignation on the question underlined by the ISF [Impôt de solidarité sur la fortune] and on the litigation that we have with the Canadian trusts ”, declared Bruno Le Maire in response to a question from the deputy of France insubordinate François Ruffin, during a hearing before the Committee on Economic Affairs of the National Assembly.
“We have launched all the procedures for several years to obtain information from the Canadian authorities”, he added, assuring that the government is “mobilized” to fight against “fraud or against tax evasion” .
For several years, French justice has been investigating suspicions of tax fraud according to which large French fortunes would have used trusts, opaque structures for locating assets, to avoid paying wealth tax in France.
We have launched all procedures for several years to obtain information from the Canadian authorities
Last May, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office had thus confirmed to Agence France-Presse that the brothers Jérôme and Nicolas Seydoux, rich industrialists in French cinema, were cited in a judicial investigation opened in 2019 in connection with the existence of trusts. in Canada.
Extensive survey
Monday, the newspaper Release published a vast investigation into this affair, at the center of which would be the Quebec wealth management company Blue Bridge, which allegedly used a loophole in the Franco-Canadian tax treaty of 1975. This “subjects the income of trusts, [mais] nothing is clearly said about the sums coming from the capital itself ”, explains Release.
In addition to the Seydoux family, other people, such as the founders of Promodès, Richard cafes or Nobilis upholstery fabrics, would have had recourse to Blue Bridge, according to the daily.
Since 2011, France legally obliges its residents to declare their trusts to the national authorities and sometimes to pay associated taxes, and its nationals, to declare if their trusts contain property located in the country.