The raids were part of a preliminary investigation opened in November 2022 for “money laundering, aggravated tax fraud”
French authorities raided the offices of Netflix in France on Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged tax fraud and unregistered employees, local media reported.
According to the information weekly Marianne and the newspaper Libération, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office and the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Violations carried out searches at the French headquarters of the streaming giant in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.
Marianne, who broke the news, said that the raids were part of a preliminary investigation opened in November 2022 by “money laundering, aggravated tax fraud” and “undercover work in an organized gang”.
The investigation against Netflix in France
The magazine indicated that the investigation was triggered by a tax audit in 2022, in which Netflix’s statements for France between 2019 and 2020 did not match the profits that would have been expected from its seven million subscribers at the time, suggesting that had applied tax optimization techniques.
According to Marianne, Netflix Services France paid $1.06 million in taxes on profits for the 2019-20 financial year. The magazine added that Netflix’s French subsidiary appears to have since abandoned tax optimization strategies, with its reported local turnover increasing accordingly, from $51.3 million in 2020 to $1.3 billion in 2022.
The objective of the investigation was to discover how the alleged tax fraud had been carried out internally.
Liberation reported that it also A raid was being carried out simultaneously at Netflix’s European headquarters in the Netherlandsafter months of cooperation between French and Dutch researchers.
Netflix is not the first multinational to be investigated in France for alleged tax optimization practices. In 2022, McDonald’s agreed to pay $1.36 billion to French authorities to avoid criminal prosecution for tax fraud committed between 2009 and 2020.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
