“We are talking about two different things and two different periods.” Contacted by the site Puremedia Tuesday, Elise Lucet responded to Dominique Strauss-Khan’s accusations concerning
the number Cash Investigation that France 2 will broadcast on Thursday evening. Monday, the former boss of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reacted
on Twitter to the broadcast of the trailer for this survey carried out as part of the Pandora Papers entitled DSK, investigation of a man of influence.
“When wickedness becomes a lie. Your teams of professionals could have verified that I have been a Moroccan tax resident since 2013 and that I pay my taxes there up to 23.8% of my profits, or 812,000 euros for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, ”he wrote. , accompanied by the hashtag #cashinvestigation. Elise Lucet particularly regretted that Dominique Strauss-Khan reacts “before seeing the investigation”.
“Unfortunately, he did not wish to answer our questions”
“We’re talking about two different things and two different time periods. We are talking about corporate tax from 2013 to 2018. He talks about the fact that he is a Moroccan tax resident and advances figures on subsequent years, from 2018 to 2020, ”explains Elise Lucet to Puremédias. For her part, Linda Bendali explains in particular that “in the second part of his tweet, he adds two taxes that have absolutely nothing to do: income taxes and corporate taxes. Then, he mixes the periods. He added the 15% income tax, with the 8.75% on corporations, which he has only paid since 2018 ”. “It’s a little weird from a high-ranking economist,” notes the journalist.
Beyond the content of Dominique Strauss-Khan’s tweet, Elise Lucet also spoke about the fact that the former head of the IMF had not responded to the requests of his team. “We contacted his online assistant and his lawyer by email. I called his French and Moroccan cellphones. I left him messages everywhere. Unfortunately, he did not wish to answer our questions. What strikes me a bit is to respond with a tweet of three lines, out of step with what we are saying. That’s a shame. We regret it. We would have preferred a proper interview, ”laments the journalist.
Companies established in countries with favorable taxation
As AFP reported on Monday, according to the show Cash Investigation the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn would have established in countries with advantageous taxation the companies through which he would be remunerated for his activities as a speaker and consultant. This investigation, in which approximately 600 journalists gathered within the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) contributed, draws on some 11.9 million documents from fourteen financial services companies and uncovered more than 29,000 offshore companies, some used for tax evasion purposes.
Among these documents, the issue Cash Investigation examined the accounting elements of the company Parnasse International, created by the former French socialist minister in May 2013.