By a simple report, they received a large sum of money and brought millions to the State… These “snitches” are pampered by the government.
Reporting tax fraud can sometimes pay off big. In any case, this is the lot of certain French people who have decided to put themselves at the service of the administration. And there are more and more of them. “Tax advisors”, also nicknamed “tax informers”, have seen their number explode in recent years. Benefiting from a system launched in 2017, they increased from 27 to 102 in 2021, for a total of 317 reports in four years. And more and more French people are attracted by these somewhat special missions every year.
As for informants used by certain law enforcement and intelligence services in the field of narcotics, organized crime or even terrorism, the system is based on a simple principle: for these “informants” it is a question of providing to the administration of information on money movements contrary to tax regulations, in exchange for remuneration. This system based on tax advisors was first tested in 2017 to complete the State’s arsenal in the fight against tax fraud.
Proof that all means are good for detecting and regularizing fraud, these informers outside the administration have already made it possible to get their hands on 110.32 million euros between 2017 and 2021, taxes and penalties included. But such catches are only possible if individuals are encouraged to report the fraud they spot. And the administration has decided to pull out all the stops to motivate them: a handsome payment is offered by the administration for each report, if the facts are finally proven, if the administration was not already aware of it and if the amount of the fraud reaches at least 100,000 euros.
Of course, not all the reports led to tax audits and 176 were closed or considered outside the framework, indicates The Parisian, and were therefore not paid. But those who really brought money to the administration allowed the “advisors” to claim compensation of “up to 15% of the rights recovered in the case of cases of great importance” according to a note from the Ministry of Public Accounts dated June 2020. Before that, compensation was capped at 1 million euros regardless of the value of the fraud reported and regularized, but this measure harmed the “attractiveness of the system” according to a parliamentary report.
From now on, there “is no precise scale” for remuneration. “It all depends on the quality of the information provided and what it allowed us to recover. It is on a case by case basis,” according to the government. But certain cases have allowed informers to receive significant sums: between 2017 and 2022, nine informers were compensated to the tune of 3.4 million euros. Although the amount of remuneration is substantial, it represents barely 3% of the 110 million recovered. Also, the Court of Auditors recognized in a November 2023 report that “the budgetary performance of the tax advisor system” was “high”.
Faced with these results and while the experimentation of tax advisors was due to end on December 31, 2023, Parliament decided to perpetuate the system last fall. The elected officials who had mainly denounced a system that played the game of denunciation, finally changed their minds. Especially since it is not the balance of a major financial fraud who wants.