PARIS (Reuters) -Police on Tuesday raided McKinsey’s Paris office in relation to an investigation into suspected tax fraud, the financial prosecutor’s office said.
The investigation into the U.S. management consultancy was triggered after the French Senate in March alleged that the firm was not paying corporate taxes in France.
McKinsey denies any wrongdoing.
“The company cooperates fully with public authorities, as it has always done,” McKinsey said in a statement, in which it confirmed Tuesday’s raid.
“McKinsey reaffirms that it complies with the French tax and social rules applicable to it.”
The use of private consultants by President Emmanuel Macron’s government emerged as an unexpected issue ahead of the presidential election in France in April which Macron won.
The opposition had accused Macron’s government of spending too much on international consultancies that pay little or no tax in France.
A report by the French Senate in March said French ministries more than doubled spending on outside consultants from 379 million euros ($405.57 million) in 2018 to 894 million euros last year.
The Senate report also said that McKinsey, which has been present in France since 1964 and has its office on Paris’ prestigious Champs-Elysees, had not paid corporate taxes in France over the last ten years.
McKinsey at the time referred to its statement that said its French arm had paid out 422 million euros in taxes and social charges from 2011 to 2020.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Tassilo Hummel and Juliette Portala. Writing by Ingrid Melander. Editing by Richard Lough and Jane Merriman)
