The irony is as surprising as it is alarming: In Belfort, General Electric (GE)’s gas turbine business is in full swing, with order books full of exploding, but the site, which the US energy conglomerate sees as a cost center that must be reduced at all costs, and profits no longer suffer from deficit since 2015.
Just, “This deficit is artificial, with systematic plundering of the Balfour Entity’s resources and profits registered in Switzerland, in the canton of Aargau, where corporate taxation is weak”, The European Union condemns the CFE-CGC / SUD. It is used to reduce investment budgets for industrial facilities, moderate wage policy, justify social plans and transfers. »
‘We are at war’
After numerous expert reports and rights advocates since 2018, which had no bearing on GE’s tax policy, the union filed a complaint against X on Monday, May 30 (with CSE), to the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), in order to “Laundering tax evasion, breach of trust, forgery, the use of counterfeiting and aggravated concealment in an organized gang”, through his lawyer mr.e Eva Joly, a former investigative judge in the financial position of the Paris Court and the leader of the anti-corruption in the 1990s, this action implies the responsibility of the company and its leaders.
At the conclusion of these investigations, Eva Jolie and her teams revealed an “artificial reduction of 555 million euros for three decades during the period 2016-2019”.
“Tax evasion should not be a death knell anymore”confirmed Philip Petticulin (CFE-CGC) and Alexis Cesmat (SUD) during a press conference, Tuesday 31 May in Belfort, attended by Me Joly and representatives of NGOs Oxfam and Attac. The tools and weapons to identify and combat them are in place, starting with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) rules mandating that that tax be paid where value-added is created rather than where it is weakest. » They support: “We are at war.”
At the end of these investigations, Eva Jolie and her teams revealed “An artificial reduction of 555 million euros for three decades during the period 2016-2019”. The first, relating to brand ownership, states that General Electric Energy Products France (GE EPF) pays 1% of its sales to a US subsidiary based in Delaware. Our experts have shown that it has already paid twice as much, or 13 million euros. » Even worse, this royalty should have been 0.3%, according to OECD rules. finally, “Overpayments by GE Belfort amount to 32.7 million euros”.
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