"Seven years in Tibet" and nine months of reprieve.
The director Jean-Jacques Annaud was sentenced Tuesday in Paris for laundering tax evasion to nine months suspended prison sentence and a 120,000 euros fine, as part of an appearance on prior admission of guilt (CRPC).
The 77-year-old was sentenced for not having declared to the tax authorities more than one million euros paid in 1997, corresponding to part of his remuneration for the film "Seven Years in Tibet", which generated 110 million euros. euros at the global box office.
This sum was in a
trust
called "Los Condores" and located in Guernsey then in the Cayman Islands, before being transferred to Hong Kong, had revealed in 2017, as part of "Paradise Papers", Radio France and Le Monde, members of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
At the time, the director's lawyer had described his client as a "good filmmaker, but not an excellent tax expert", saying that this payment method had been decided by the American producer of the film, Sony studios.
"Foreign to international financial and fiscal mechanisms"
During a hearing Tuesday, the Paris court approved the sentence proposed by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), stressing that the defendant admitted the facts, that he had "regularized his situation" with the tax authorities and qualifying the suggested sanctions of "adapted".
The director's lawyer, Eric Delloye, asserted that his client had "never wished to evade the tax" and that he had "never apprehended" the sum in question, because it was still in the hands of the manager of the
trust.
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“Mr. Annaud is totally foreign to international financial and fiscal mechanisms and has only been the beneficiary of this remuneration - which he has not yet received - on the advice of American lawyers who have not explained to him the ins and outcomes of operations, ”he argued.
Since the revelations of the press, the director has initiated proceedings with the tax administration, to which he will pay a total of one million euros - 600,000 euros in taxes evaded over twenty years, as well as penalties.
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Jean-Jacques Annaud, laureate of several Césars, notably directed "The name of the Rose" (1986), "The bear" (1988) and "Deux Frères (2004), as well as the series" The truth on the Henry Quebert case ”.
