Tax fraud: more than 15 billion euros in recovery in 2023, a record

Last spring, Gabriel Attal, then still Minister of Public Accounts, made the fight against tax and social fraud his hobby horse. He promised tax administrations increased resources to make combat measures more effective, as well as increased sanctions. A year later, he returned to Bercy this Wednesday, accompanied by his successor at the Budget Thomas Cazenave, to take stock of the measures implemented. “The objective was clear: to track down fraud wherever it is found,” recalled the Prime Minister. Insisting on the very fragile situation of French public finances, he declared “preferring to increase the pressure on fraudsters than on taxpayers”.

According to the figures communicated by Bercy, this voluntarism has paid off. On the tax fraud side, 15.2 billion euros were recovered in 2023, or 600 million more than in 2022. “The number of tax audits on individuals has already increased by 25%,” supported Gabriel Attal. In order to strengthen the movement, a tax intelligence unit dedicated to detecting the most complex frauds will be created on July 1.

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As for social benefits, 450 million euros of fraud have been identified in the health insurance area. “In seven out of ten cases, it involves fraud initiated by a health professional,” insisted the Prime Minister. Thus, the administration identified, thanks to the help of pharmacists, devices for generating false prescriptions worth 11 million euros. For their part, 5 million euros of fake work stoppages, sold on the Internet, were spotted. A network of 13 health centers was suspended for overbilling.

The identified family allowance fraud reached 400 million euros, knowing that in one year the CAF increased their controls by a third. They now apply 10% management fees to fraudsters. Old-age insurance, for its part, has doubled checks on retirees residing abroad and thus detected 750 fraudulent files in Algeria alone.

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Finally, in terms of social security contribution fraud, Urssaf adjustments have increased by 50% in one year. Social fraud in recovered businesses thus reached 1.2 billion euros, compared to 800 million in 2022 and even 500 million in 2017. In detail, the establishment of a regularization window for micro-entrepreneurs (former self-employed) resulted in 34 million euros in adjustments.

Thomas Cazenave, the Minister of Public Accounts, further detailed the measures put in place to combat multiple frauds in public aid: aid for clean vehicles, CPF, apprenticeship, bicycle bonus… “We spotted a hairdressing salon, which had declared 70 apprenticeship contracts while the legal maximum is two,” he said, for example.