“The orders of magnitude are crazy”: recover 18 billion euros in fraud, the VAT mirage at the source of the RN

Some 18 billion additional euros per year from 2031. This is what the RN expects from the drastic reduction in VAT fraud thanks to the introduction of withholding tax. A straw... For comparison, the European Commission estimated uncollected VAT in France at 12.1 billion in 2023, errors and bankruptcies included. The National Rally claims a fraud of “30 to 40 billion euros”, according to Jean-Philippe Tanguy. “Tackling VAT fraud is a good idea, but the orders of magnitude are crazy,” says François Thomazeau, senior civil servant and co-author of an analysis for Terra Nova. Currently, no serious study shows that 18 billion euros of VAT fraud can be recovered. »

Contacted by Challenges, the RN does not detail its measurement. In Europe, few countries use forms of withholding VAT. For example, Italy practices the “split payment” method, which separates VAT from the amount paid to suppliers, only for public administrations. The measure brings in 4.6 billion euros in additional revenue per year, according to the Italian authorities.

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But, for France, the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) judged in a report, in 2019, the revenues of this mechanism to be “very uncertain” and even warned of the risk of… new potential frauds. “Split payment would at this stage be a disproportionate means of combating VAT fraud in France,” ruled the IGF. And we still need to put the reform in place. The generalization of electronic invoicing has already caused numerous headaches for Bercy services. Initially planned from 2024, the system did not begin until September 2026 and should continue into 2027.

Conversely, the VAT cuts promised by Marine Le Pen on energy and essential products would almost certainly deprive state coffers of 15.7 billion. From the first year.

Machine-translated from French