French budget minister in soup over tax issue

PARIS: The French minister responsible for enforcing new taxes on the rich is to be investigated for tax evasion.

The Paris chief prosecutor announced yesterday that he has started a preliminary investigation into media allegations that Jérôme Cahuzac hid money in an undeclared bank account in Switzerland until two years ago.

If proved, the allegations could be explosively embarrassing for a Socialist French government already facing constitutional complications, and an exodus by the wealthy, as it tries to enforce President François Hollande’s plans for a 75 percent “supertax”.

Cahuzac, 60, a successful cosmetic surgeon turned budget minister, welcomed news of the investigation. He said the inquiry would prove he had never had an illegal offshore bank account.

A parallel investigation will also be launched into Cahuzac’s complaint that he was defamed by the news website Mediapart which alleged last month that he had an undeclared UBS account in Geneva until 2010.

Cahuzac has adamantly denied Mediapart’s allegations.

Mediapart has posted online the recording of a telephone conversation in 2000 in which a politician, allegedly Cahuzac, discusses his embarrassment about a Swiss account. Cahuzac says the voice is not his. – The Independent