The company will pay all the taxes it owes in France, reaffirms Bruno Le Maire

It is a solemn promise in the hope of extinguishing the fire which taints Emmanuel Macron’s campaign a few days before the first round of the presidential election. McKinsey “will pay all they owe as tax to the French Treasury”, reaffirmed this Thursday the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire.

The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office announced on Wednesday the opening on the tax practices of the American consulting firm. The minister did not wish to comment directly on the opening of this investigation, believing only on Franceinfo that “it is the role of justice to take up cases which it considers that it must take up”.

“Aggravated laundering of tax evasion”

He also recalled that the administration had “undertaken a tax audit on the McKinsey firm last November”. “Let’s not say that the tax administration is not doing its job,” continued Bruno Le Maire.

The national financial prosecutor indicated on Wednesday that after having taken note of the report of the Senate commission of inquiry into the influence of private consulting firms on public policies, his prosecution had opened a preliminary investigation for aggravated laundering of tax fraud. .

Suspicions of tax optimization

The investigations were entrusted to the Service of judicial investigations of finances (SEJF), specified the prosecutor in this press release without mentioning the name of McKinsey.

In a report submitted on March 16, the Senate commission of inquiry assured that the contracts concluded by the State with consulting firms like McKinsey had “more than doubled” between 2018 and 2021, reaching a record amount of more than one billion euros in 2021. She also accused the French entities of the McKinsey firm of “tax optimization”, which would have allowed them to pay no corporate tax between 2011 and 2020.

“Bad faith” of the opposition

A few days before the first round of the presidential election, the oppositions denounced majority favoritism in favor of this consulting firm, and called for the opening of an investigation.

Bruno Le Maire defended the use of consulting firms, denouncing the “bad faith” of the opposition and political leaders who denounce the current majority, while they too “used these same consulting firms” in their local responsibilities.