the tackle from Luxembourg
The recent decision is as improbable as it is unexpected and puts a serious brake on policies to combat tax evasion. On the initiative of two suspects from the Grand Duchy, refusing to allow their personal data to be freely accessible, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union invalidated the provision of the directive aimed at combating money laundering. capital and terrorist financing of 2018 which allowed it, on the pretext that it presented “a serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life”. Guess what happened immediately? Luxembourg and the Netherlands, which pamper multinationals, immediately suspended access to their registers of beneficiaries of companies created in the European Union. A real scandal denounced in a loop by judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke, recalling that according to the economist Gabriel Zucman, the assets hidden via offshore companies are draining the world…. 8,250 billion euros!
For Luxembourg, it makes you wonder what use the cascades of Revelations have had in recent years. Panama Papers a Luxleaks in 2014 , until Openlux in 2021 , the investigations have been repeated and have, each time, demonstrated the central role of the small country in tax evasion and financial crime. The latest survey has brought to light a volume of 6,500 billion euros in assets hidden under ingenious financial arrangements and an inextricable layer of 55,000 offshore companies. This decision also comes in the wake of of the parliamentary report on tax evasion, published by MP Nupes de Moselle , Charlotte Leduc. She recommends, among other things, to beef up the number of tax officials to track down these hidden assets. But by referring the doors, Luxembourg has reintroduced financial opacity. For economists, tax evasion as a whole costs us dearly. In 2019, it would have represented 46% of the French public debt, or a trifle of 1,085 billion euros.