The government is seeking to reduce its budget deficit at all costs: it should focus on a growing shortfall: VAT fraud.
The report published by the European Commission only covers the 2010-2014 period, but it is more than clear: France is losing more and more money due to VAT fraud.
In 2010, the difference between theoretical VAT and collected VAT already amounted to 14.9 billion euros.
While the fraud reached a minimum in 2011 with only 9% fraud (or 13.4 billion), it increased to 24.4 billion (14%) in 2014, an increase of 5% over four years.
The latest publication from Brussels on the issue shows that it is significantly rising in France (+5% between 2011 and 2014), especially since the reduced VAT rate of 7% was raised to 10%.
Moreover, the European Commission estimates that it was in 2014, the year when the intermediate VAT rate, which was 7%, was raised to 10%, that everything turned.
That year, the standard VAT rate was also increased from 19.6% to 20%, but the 0.4% difference is minimal compared to the 3% increase in the intermediate rate.
It should be noted that between 2013 and 2014, while the situation generally improved in the European Union and fraud cost 2.5 billion euros less, in France, fraud increased by 4 billion euros.
Although VAT fraud is increasing in France, the country has no reason to be ashamed: 14% is the average in terms of VAT fraud; it reached 159.5 billion euros at the European level in 2014.
