After pensions, the government is tackling a new issue: the fight against fraud. Gabriel Attal, Minister of Public Accounts, announced on France Inter, Tuesday April 18, that he would unveil an action plan in the coming weeks. The measures will concern both tax evasion – all actions aimed at evading taxes – and social fraud – the fact of receiving a benefit without being entitled to it, or evading social security contributions.
It remains to be seen how much the State will gain from it. Because if fighting against fraud seems obvious, it remains very difficult to quantify. “Fraudsters obviously seek not to be discovered”, explains to L’Express Nicolas Jacquemet, professor at the Paris School of Economics and at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, co-author of “How to fight against tax evasion? “So it is impossible to know precisely the amounts at stake.”
To get an idea, different methods exist. One of them consists in carrying out checks on a sample of households, and generalizing the conclusions to the entire population. But “the most telling example is to measure consumer spending, and compare it to declared income,” says Nicolas Jacquemet. If consumption is higher than income, it is because part of the income escapes tax.
Between 80 and 100 billion euros of tax fraud
These techniques remain “imprecise and are based on many assumptions”, recognizes Nicolas Jacquemet. However, they do allow some estimates to be made. Solidaires finances publics, the main union representing public finance employees, assesses a shortfall of 80 to 100 billion euros in tax evasion. This is more than the overall budget of the Ministry of National Education (59 billion euros in 2023).
In response to this phenomenon, Gabriel Attal announced the doubling of the staff of the judicial financial investigation service (SEJF). 266 investigators are currently listed. Thanks to this measure, the executive hopes to beat its 2022 record. The tax administration collected 14.6 billion euros last year, an amount up around 8% compared to 2021, a indicated Gabriel Attal in an interview at Parisian.
Between 14 and 40 billion of social fraud
Social fraud is just as difficult to quantify. In 2020, a parliamentary commission of inquiry of the National Assembly estimated a shortfall “between 14 and 40 billion euros” per year. A report by the Court of Auditors dating from 2014 puts the figure at 20 billion euros.
No administration concerned ventures to calculate its damage, except the Family Allowance Fund (CAF). This estimated the cost of the fraud at 2.8 billion euros in 2021.
To combat this practice, the government has already planned to abolish the payment of allowances to bank accounts abroad. This measure will come into effect on July 1. Bercy also plans to work with airlines to better monitor the payment of allowances. “Our compatriots are fed up with social fraud”, justified the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on BFMTV-RMC on April 18. “They have no desire to see that people can benefit from aid, send them back to the Maghreb or elsewhere, when they are not entitled to it.” His remarks created an uproar on the left.