Article 64 of the Tax Procedures Code specifies that companies exploiting every loophole in the tax system only risk a tax adjustment if their scheme has “exclusively as its purpose to mitigate or evade the tax burdens that the taxpayer would normally bear.”
Therefore, it is enough to propose other motives — competitiveness, a necessary restructuring of the business structure — to avoid the abuse of rights. Replacing “exclusively” with “primarily” would allow the administration to act, and the deterrent effect could be colossal.
For example, recent studies show that Microsoft, Amazon, and other multinationals, according to certain sources, pay 22 times less tax than they should!
These companies finance small armies of consultants and business lawyers to minimize their taxes under the guise of “tax optimization.”
Since the financial crisis and the wave of austerity, each country has been working to plug the gaps in its own tax system.
It is time for France to tackle the issue of tax optimization that is ruining tax revenues.
