Paris will increase tax money for the state by doing more to stop fraud and keep a closer eye on big corporations and companies.
Gabriel Attal, the Minister of Public Action and Accounts, says that the French government wants to tighten tax rules and make it harder to avoid paying taxes. This is part of a new effort to fight big fraud.
The minister said that by the end of Emmanuel Macron’s second term as president in 2027, the number of checks of the country’s largest businesses would have increased by 25%.
Attal said the focus would be on the “high end of the spectrum,” which means the biggest, most complicated, and often foreign scams.
On Tuesday, he told France Inter radio, “We plan to put more pressure on the super-rich and multinationals, which will ease the pressure on the middle class and small business owners.” “The vast majority of French people who work and pay taxes are being taken advantage of by this scam.”
Attal also talked about the need to “relieve the pressure on small taxpayers” by making it easier to file taxes and letting them off the hook for their first mistake. He also said that if the government made a mistake, there would be “an automatic reverse of penalty” in favour of a taxpayer.
As part of the plan, the country’s leaders will check the taxes of the 100 biggest companies on the stock market every other year. For French business giants, there is no set number of times these checks will happen.
The government plans to hire 1,500 more people by 2027 to help with increased tax audits. Also, a new tax intelligence service will be set up under the Ministry of Economy and Finance. One hundred “elite agents” will be hired to fight big foreign tax fraud.
According to the most recent information from the French government, steps to stop tax fraud have helped the treasury recover €14.6 billion (almost $16 billion). This is an increase of 8.2% compared to 2021.
