the Court of Auditors singles out the State for lacking “strategy” – L’Express

“France does not have any rigorous assessment of tax fraud,” notes the first president of the institution Pierre Moscovici. The Court also welcomes the digital tools deployed since the 2010s, such as the processing of mass data (data mining). But without this data, it is impossible to say whether the fraud detected corresponds to 20%, 50% or 80% of the fraud committed,” he concludes.

The amounts collected by the tax authorities after tax audit reached 14.6 billion euros in 2022. A fifth concerned individuals, the rest companies. The relevance of the anomalies detected by the software also seems to be increasing: in 2021, 57% of controls triggered after a report by the tax authorities resulted in a recall of rights, compared to 47% in 2018.

To ensure maximum recovery of taxes not declared by individuals, the Court of Auditors has therefore asked the government to develop a national strategy for detecting tax irregularities by the end of 2024. This is currently almost non-existent in the vast anti-fraud plan presented in May by the government.

Six priority areas are set out by the institution to guide the government: in addition to an estimate of fraud, it recommends increased transparency for strategic choices in terms of control which would allow better allocation of resources, but also “decompartmentalization administration information systems for better circulation of data, an amplification of tax intelligence, proactive prevention today mainly focused on businesses”, and finally “a policy of attractiveness and loyalty of specialized agents” .

In October, the government launched a Fraud Evaluation Council, which brings together around thirty personalities responsible “before next summer” for putting initial figures on these phenomena.