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Is sponsorship criminally reprehensible? This is the challenge of a complaint for "fraud" and "Laundering tax fraud" which has just been filed by the Republican Front of Intervention against Corruption (Fricc, founded by former members of Anticor). It aims Bernard Arnault, boss of LVMH, its Louis-Vuitton Foundation and their museum outside standards built on the edge of Paris, for the colossal amount of 790 million euros.
Wednesday, a report of the Court of Accounts, commissioned by the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, had already set foot in the dish denouncing the excesses of the law Aillagon (2003), Minister of Culture under the presidency of Jacques Chirac, allowing large companies to deduct from their taxable profits 60% of sums dedicated to various cultural projects. "Patronage provides the company as such with a favorable reputation linked to the unselfishness of the gift", points out the Court of Auditors, with "Optimization of media impact". The complaint of the Fricc a little more nail, evoking "Fraudulent maneuvers" aiming to profit more than necessary from this tax niche.
Cost drift
Everything has already been said about the Pharaohism of this Louis-Vuitton Foundation, its flamboyant building designed by architect Frank Gehry, Bernard Arnault proclaiming his desire to "Make a gift to France", the French state to recover the property fifty years later. Gift, however, 60% self-financed by the State itself. Remains the cost drift: initially estimated at 100 million euros, its construction will have cost eight times more – 790 million, according to the Court of Auditors, LVMH refusing to communicate any number (1). Certainly, Bernard Arnault, first French fortune, is not a few million, but all the same. Would he have loaded the mule to maximize his tax niche? This is all suspicion of the complaint of the Fricc.
At 112 855 euros the m2, the Louis-Vuitton Foundation explodes all real estate records. Franck Gehry, the same architect of the Guggenheim Foundation Museum in Bilbao, had then displayed a more modest 4 580 euros the2 (three times more floor space for a cost seven times less). In Paris, the construction of the Philharmonie, 100% public, which had made headlines for a doubling of the initial estimate (up to 400 million), emerges only 22 590 euros the2. "We do not count a dream", has already retorted Bernard Arnault, a spokesman for LVMH more recently to answer the Court of Auditors: "The sponsorship scheme is specifically designed to promote major projects. " In fact, the luxury empire alone absorbs 8% of the Aillagon tax niche. weekly Marianne, very advanced on the subject, has also documented a few additional tips allowing the luxury group to circumvent a little more tax (VAT or business tax). This is one of the regrets of the Court of Auditors, in its report to the deputies: "Pbadive management of this tax revenue by the State services."
"The risk of sponsorship scam is real"
It would be better, or worse, to read the complaint of the Fricc. Exceedances of the construction of the flagship of the Louis-Vuitton Foundation would not be unrelated to another major building site dear to Bernard Arnault: the renovation of the former Parisian store of Samaritaine, 70 000 m2 in the heart of the capital, currently rehabilitated as a luxury hotel, offices and shops. At a more modest cost of 7,142 euros per2. With, in both cases, the construction group Vinci at the shell. Joseph Breham, counsel for the complainants, sums up, cautiously and blandly, his problem: "The other work done by Vinci for LVMH was done at a construction cost well below that of the foundation." And to estimate that "The risk of sponsorship scam is real". Because in the end, according to the calculations of the Court of Auditors, LVMH has benefited from a tax credit on profits of 518 million euros (2). In the entourage of Bernard Arnault, we say to ourselvesflabbergasted " to the evocation of a possible overcharging, for a building "which cost us an armor ", judging "insupportable" the complaint of the Fricc. "How much is a square centimeter of Picbado's canvas?" asks a leader of the group to Release, noting that the Court of Auditors has refrained from any procedural criticism. To the PNF (National Financial Procuratorate), now seized, to get rid of it. More than presumed innocent, the Louis-Vuitton Foundation would have a very simple way to defend itself: publish its accounts. She abstains, the devil knows why, to do it for three years.
(1) In its last annual report published at the end of 2015, the Louis-Vuitton Foundation reports a construction value of 760 million euros, for "founders' contributions" of 530 million.
(2) To which Marianne adds 120 million euros as an attempt to evade VAT.
Renaud Lecadre
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