The French government is seeking to recover €2.5bn in back taxes from several banks, including some of the country’s largest lenders, over a scheme they are alleged to have used to avoid taxes linked to dividend payments.
Gabriel Attal, the minister for the budget, gave the figure in a public Senate hearing earlier this month, but did not name the banks that had been issued with the demands.
It is the first time that the French government has given a figure for the potential losses to public coffers from the so-called cum-cum trades, or transactions designed to seek tax advantages tied to the payment of dividends.
Banks elsewhere in Europe, including in Germany, have been targeted by related probes around so-called cum-ex trades, on which governments reimbursed taxes on dividends that were never paid to start with.
The disclosure of the French bill comes after financial prosecutors in late March sent 150 agents to raid the offices of several French banks, including BNP…
