During an exchange of views with the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC) on Thursday 6 February, Laura Kövesi, Chief Prosecutor at the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), reiterated her request for her organisation to have direct access to information from the Eurofisc network so that they can better combat fraud related to value added tax (VAT). Yannic Hulot, President of Eurofisc, supported the request and pointed out ways in which the system could be improved.
“I have been trying to say things in a diplomatic way but I do not have the impression that I'm being heard”, complained Ms Kövesi. She had earlier made this same request in 2023 to the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13152/21). In her opinion, VAT fraud is one of most criminal activities in the EU and is very dangerous. Criminal organisations organise these ‘carousel’ frauds, which involve several companies established in at least two EU Member States. They make a lot of money from these frauds, money derived from drug trafficking and the use of human beings to organise these fraudulent activities.
“If you go after the little entrepreneur who serves ice cream in the street without an electronic invoice, but you do not go after the mafioso, who is investing millions in a gigantic VAT fraud, it is unfair”, she argued.
Yannic Hulot felt that EPPO and its network were “complementary”. Thanks to the recent transactional network analysis (TNA) system, Eurofisc has been able to detect cases of carousel fraud at an early stage. “We have already halved the loss, and now my perspective with new resources means we have the possibility to reduce the loss that we have now by a factor of four”, he announced.
To improve the situation, he recommends sharing TNA statistics. “We have a lot of interesting statistics showing the evolution, the tax shift, the geographical shift of the fraud”, he explained. He also wants Eurofisc to be able to use artificial intelligence to process the large amount of VAT data. He also mentioned a return to the system of suspension of VAT numbers in the presence of a criminal practice.
For her part, the European Commission representative gave assurances that the regulations were being re-examined in order to strengthen cooperation between these two bodies. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)