While this scourge weighs on the French economy, the State seems determined to signal the end of recess.
Last year, Gabriel Attal, then Minister Delegate in charge of Public Accounts, launched a vast plan to combat fraud.
This included a section devoted to hidden work, often colloquially called “black work”.
This can take the form of concealment of activity (no registration or declaration) or salaried employment (absence of pay slip or underestimation of the number of hours worked).
The fishing was fruitful since the 350 agents specifically dedicated to this task (out of a total of 1,500 Urssaf inspectors scattered throughout France) achieved in 2023 a year described as “historic” by the Minister for Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave : 1.177 billion euros in adjustments to social security contributions.
An increase of almost 50% compared to 2022. An amount multiplied by four in ten years.
“This fight against fraud allows us to participate in the financing of our social model,” said the minister just before a trip to Urssaf Nord-Pas-de Calais in Lille.
It guarantees the social rights of employees and self-employed workers alike, since social contributions that are not paid mean less revenue for these contributions, but also fewer rights.
There is also an issue, that of ensuring fair competition between all companies.
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83% of controls resulted in an adjustment
A recovery can be expensive for a company since the average amount recovered in 2023 exceeded 200,000 euros.
Urssaf agents showed a certain zeal: in addition to random checks, they also carried out 6,000 targeted checks (+ 8.5%) on companies or self-employed workers.
Proof of the effectiveness of this targeting (or of the number of companies using and abusing undeclared work): 83% of controls resulted in a recovery.
The sectors most particularly targeted?
Construction, on which almost a quarter (24.5%) of the controls were concentrated, followed by commerce (16.9%) and the hotel and catering industry (13.2%).
Building on these results, the minister announced “two decrees by May” in order to further increase the pressure on companies that would be tempted to commit fraud.
The first will concern liquidations sometimes carried out to avoid collections.
It will aim to ensure that “tax and social obligations have been fulfilled” upstream.
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A second decree will specifically target “the universal transfer of assets (a form of merger between two companies) which is sometimes the subject of abuse”.
Thomas Cazenave concluded by indicating that he set himself the objective of further quadrupling the amount of recoveries for hidden work, and “thus reaching five billion euros by 2027”.