The press disclosures contained in the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers relating to foreign investments have allowed the French tax authorities to collect close to 200 million euros, the AFP of the Ministry of Economy learned on Monday.
“By adding regularization and control, the results of the operations carried out by the General Directorate of Public Finance (DGFiP) in relation to the Panama Papers amount to 176.7 million euros for 198 files,” according to an internal document obtained from the DGFiP, under the authority of the Ministers of the Economy Bruno Le Maire and the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal. The Bercy tax services specify that “these figures are not definitive, leaving most of the files blocked due to the lack of a complete response to requests for international administrative assistance.”
There is still not enough perspective on the Pandora Papers
As of April 2016, disclosures by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) had uncovered more than 11.5 million confidential documents from the Panamanian business law firm Mossack Fonseca. In November 2017 and February 2018, the ICIJ published the Paradise Papers, based on confidential documents from the Appleby firm. These revelations have so far allowed the DGFiP to collect 11.2 million euros for 35 files, according to the same source.
Regarding the Pandora Papers and the “Dubai Uncovered” real estate money laundering case, the revelations of which are more recent, the DGFiP states that it does not yet have “sufficient hindsight to quantify what is at stake in the proceedings initiated based on the information from these surveys, the administration adds that “nevertheless, complaints have been made to the tax police, particularly in the context of investigations related to Dubai.”
The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office last week gave until April 30 to French taxpayers who turned to the Helin company to present themselves, otherwise it will initiate criminal proceedings against them. This UAE-based company is suspected of being at the center of a vast tax evasion system that has been operating since the early 2000s and was revealed by Obs and Radio France in 2018.
Source: BFM TV
