The beginning of McKinseygate? This Friday, the Senate announced that it had taken legal action for “suspicion of false testimony”, three months after a hearing of a manager of a French subsidiary of McKinsey.
“In application of article 40 of the code of criminal procedure, the Senate took legal action for a suspicion of false testimony before the Commission of Inquiry into the growing influence of consulting firms on public policies”, indicated the Upper House in a statement issued a week after the end of the work of the said Commission.
McKinsey France official assures company pays taxes
In mid-January, questioned by members of the commission of inquiry, the head of the public sector division of McKinsey, Karim Tadjeddine had declared before the Commission of inquiry that his employer paid corporate tax in France. .
“I say it very clearly: we pay corporate tax in France and all salaries are in a company under French law which pays its taxes in France,” he said.
The Commission of Inquiry proves the contrary
“However, the senators’ investigation attests that the McKinsey firm has not paid corporate tax in France for at least 10 years”, notes the Commission of Inquiry, which qualified the use by the State of consulting firms of “sprawling phenomenon” in its report.
“These facts were supported by two on-site and on-site checks carried out at the Ministry of Economy and Finance,” it is further detailed in the press release. Accusations already formulated in the final report of the commission of inquiry. Despite a turnover of “329 million euros on national territory” in 2020, the firm would not have paid any corporate tax from 2011 to 2020. The senators had pointed to “a caricatural example of tax optimization” .
A well-known arrangement to reduce taxable income
They suspect the firm’s French entities of having paid significant “transfer prices” each year to their parent company located in the United States, “which leads to a reduction in their taxable income, and consequently the amount of their taxation”. . Consequently, the Commission of Inquiry had announced its intention to seize the public prosecutor.
In response to these suspicions, McKinsey assured last week to respect “all the applicable French tax and social rules” and said to have paid corporation tax “in the years when the firm made profits in France”.