The Bolloré group is preparing to pocket a tax saving of 535 million euros thanks to a tailor-made regime as part of the split from Vivendi. This operation, which splits the group into three listed entities – Canal+, Hachette and Havas –, is based on a “partial split”, a complex tax arrangement allowing a large part of evasion of taxation.
Concretely, the shareholders, of which Bolloré is the main beneficiary, will not pay taxes on two thirds of the value of the shares of Canal+ and Hachette, reclassified as “reimbursements of contributions”. An accounting gymnastics that avoids the classic taxation of capital gains and transforms a mechanism intended to protect businesses into a gigantic gift for capital holders. The group will thus pay 200 million euros in taxes for Canal+ and 65 million for Hachette, compared to 600 and 200 million respectively under a traditional regime. And that’s not all: by combining this arrangement with a plan called “mother-daughter”, which allows you to benefit from an exemption from dividends flowing from the subsidiary to the parent company, the group benefits from an additional reduction on dividends received.
Vivendi, a sprawling media and entertainment conglomerate, is a centerpiece of the economic empire of Vincent Bolloré, a reactionary billionaire and far-right figure in France. This group promotes and dedicates its airtime to far-right personalities like Eric Zemmour, Pascal Praud, Geoffroy Lejeune and Charlotte d’Ornellas, to mass disseminate its reactionary propaganda. Bolloré is blatantly demonstrating his hypocrisy here: while he defends austerity policies and disseminates racist ideas that accuse migrant populations of misappropriating public resources, he has no problem benefiting from tax packages to receive income. million euros of public funds.
To understand the extent of Bolloré’s empire, recent figures show that its holdings in key sectors such as media, energy and industry generate colossal profits, thus consolidating its control over strategic resources at the same time. global scale. Bolloré has huge shares in the global Music industry with its 18.5% stake in Universal Music Group. In the energy sector, it has strategic oil depots in France and Switzerland via Bolloré Energy. He also increased his control over the Rubis group, an operator specializing in the storage and distribution of oil and gas products, where he now holds more than 5% of the capital.
The Bolloré group alone embodies all the hypocrisy of a rotting capitalism which relies on ecological destruction, imperialism and exploitation of the working class. Enough to remind us of the urgency of fighting against this decaying capitalist system and its emblematic figures like Bolloré, whose power rests on the exploitation and dissemination of its reactionary propaganda through large groups like Vivendi. The accumulation and concentration of its capital depends on the deepening of these deadly trends, while counting on the active complicity of the State, which provides the legislative and fiscal tools necessary to protect the interests of the great fortunes.
