Tax expenditures, subsidies and fraud, Marine Le Pen
Tax and social security fraud: VAT paid at source, against fraud estimated at €26bn
Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.
The lever. Combating tax, contribution and benefit fraud: inspection staff numbers, sanctions, expected revenue. Direction rule: ↑ stronger action.
« Ainsi, la lutte contre la fraude à la TVA a été complètement délaissée alors qu'elle pèse 26 milliards d'euros. La Belgique a presque totalement éliminé ce phénomène et le paiement de la TVA à la source sera un changement révolutionnaire. »1Translation by the editorsThus, the fight against VAT fraud has been completely neglected even though it amounts to 26 billion euros. Belgium has almost totally eliminated this phenomenon and payment of VAT at source will be a revolutionary change.
Words of Marine Le Pen, Chaîne YouTube officielle de Marine Le Pen, « La trajectoire financière de mon quinquennat », conférence de presse (vidéo, transcription de la rédaction), 6 October 2026. Position taken from public statements, not from a written programme.
No programme released. Positions taken from public statements, words of associates or documents of the candidate’s party, each dated and sourced; last recorded on 18 October 2026.
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No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.
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The cited source does not cost this measure.
Published costings
none
No external costing of this position recorded to date.
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Payment of VAT at source: a collection method the cost schedule cannot cost (its parameter concerns revenue recovered through tax audits), and no gain is announced for this measure. The €26bn cited by the candidate measures VAT fraud; the cost schedule uses a VAT gap of €6bn to €10bn, estimated by the DGFiP. The RN's 2026 counter-budget (23 October 2025, p. 7) expects €3.5bn from « Lutte contre les fraudes » [“Combating fraud”], all types of fraud combined, without detail: not counted.
Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Tax audits in 2024: €20.1bn of duties and penalties assessed for collection, €11.4bn actually collected (Cour des comptes, December 2025). No official costing of tax fraud: for the Cour, « nul ne peut aujourd'hui se hasarder à affirmer que ce montant est proche de 30 ou de 130 Md€ » [“no one today can venture to assert that this amount is close to €30bn or €130bn”]. VAT gap: €6bn to €10bn (DGFiP). Social security fraud estimated at €13bn, of which €2.1bn detected and €0.6bn recovered (HCFiPS, 2024). Anti-fraud bill under discussion in 2026.
Horizon. Phased in over several years; full year 2032 to be justified by resources (staff, tools).
Limits. The amounts of « fraude totale » [“total fraud”] often cited (€80bn to €100bn, Solidaires) are judged by the Cour des comptes to have no method. A promise of yield from the fight against fraud is costed on the revenue recovered, not on the estimated fraud, and related to the resources committed. Coefficient calculated by the editors (10% of the €11.4bn recovered; €20.1bn issued for collection as the upper bound). The costing is fragile: low confidence index.
- Cour des comptes, La lutte contre la fraude fiscale, 2025-12-16: « Celles-ci sont passées de 12,2 Md€ en 2015 à 11,4 Md€ en 2024 ... ces résultats retrouvent leur niveau de départ (20,1 Md€ en 2024 contre 21,2 Md€ en 2015) ... Nul ne peut aujourd'hui se hasarder à affirmer que ce montant est proche de 30 ou de 130 Md€ ... La fourchette finalement dégagée par la DGFiP (entre 6 et 10 Md€ ...) »
- HCFiPS, Fraude sociale 2024, infographie, 2024-09-25: « MONTANTS ÉVALUÉS ... 13 MD€ ; FRAUDES CONSTATÉES ET STOPPÉES 2,1 MD€ DONT 0,5 MD€ ÉVITÉES ; MONTANTS RECOUVRÉS 0,6 MD€ »
How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.
- Chaîne YouTube officielle de Marine Le Pen, « La trajectoire financière de mon quinquennat », conférence de presse (vidéo, transcription de la rédaction), 6 October 2026. Words of Marine Le Pen. Position taken from public statements, not from a written programme. Read the source (Chaîne YouTube officielle de Marine Le Pen, « La trajectoire financière de mon quinquennat », conférence de presse (vidéo, transcription de la rédaction)).
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