As the 2021 tax return campaign opens today, several celebrities and large companies have already had to checkout in recent weeks as part of a tax adjustment. This procedure takes place following a tax audit carried out by the tax authorities on a taxpayer with the aim of correcting the tax base of the latter when he has made errors or omissions.
In 2021, the State had recovered 10.7 billion euros following tax audits. A brief overview of the offenders who have been caught up in recent weeks.
1/ Jean-Pierre Foucault
TF1 star host Jean-Pierre Foucault must pay 365,000 euros in additional taxes, reveal Gotham City and Capital. Why ? Because Jean-Pierre Foucault should have paid wealth tax between 2011 and 2017. But the host used various strategies to avoid this, in particular the use of the Dutreil pact which reduces the ISF by 75% if the person undertakes to transmit his assets and that the activity of the transferred company is commercial (in this case, his company Parasol Production). This was not the case according to the tax authorities, who then imposed an adjustment of 365,394 euros on the host.
Jean-Pierre Foucault challenged this tax adjustment before the Paris court, then the Court of Appeal but was dismissed in both cases. « Mr. Foucault does not prove that the assets assigned to commercial activity would represent more than 50% of his gross assets », notes the Court of Appeal in its decision.
2/ SFR
SFR breaks records in tax adjustment. In total, the tax authorities claimed 830 million euros from the operator, indicates Capital. In 2021, SFR suffered a tax adjustment of 420 million euros concerning the tax on profits between the years 2017 and 2019 and the VAT between 2017 and 2018. The telephone operator made use in particular of the fact that he offered his customers a bundle of newspapers to use the reduced VAT on the press. In total, SFR was able to earn at least €420 million during the months it used this strategy. On the strength of its success, SFR was imitated by Orange, Bouygues Télécom and Canal Plus before the tax authorities intervened and launched tax adjustments.
3/ Laeticia Hallyday
The widow of Johnny Hallyday, Laeticia Hallyday, must also pay a tax adjustment. At the end of March, the Council of State established a tax adjustment of 471,780 euros on the profits of Johnny’s tour of 2009-2010 « Stop there ».
According to Capital, these profits would have been paid successively to three companies, before being donated to Johnny. The tax authorities believe that these were “non-taxable loans” made “without reason” and at “especially advantageous” rates, which were never declared or reimbursed. During his lifetime, Johnny Hallyday challenged this recovery, and it was Laeticia who recovered the procedure upon his death. After a decision in her favor in 2021, the Council of State has therefore just turned against her and she will therefore have to pay the bill.
4/ Mediapart
Same disappointment for Médiapart, since the Council of State rejected its appeal against a tax adjustment on March 30th. Mediapart contested a penalty in the amount of 1.4 million euros that it had been ordered to pay in 2020, as part of a tax adjustment. Médiapart had to pay this tax adjustment, amounting to 3.3 million euros, for having applied a reduced VAT rate reserved for the printed press, between 2008 and 2014, when the newspaper is exclusively digital.
5/ Julia Vignali
Actress, host and columnist Julia Vignali also seems to have faced the wrath of the taxman. In mid-February, on the set of Télématin, she had declared ironically during a discussion on taxes that: “for a tax adjustment, we always manage to have our interlocutor. I know, I have one at the moment and I’m very happy”. The host, however, did not expand on the subject.