“Government sets ambitious targets to tackle undeclared work and recoup billions in missed contributions”

Undeclared work is in the sights of the government. In addition to an anti-tax and social fraud plan, which must be detailed in the coming weeks, Bercy intends to set ambitious recovery objectives. The Minister of Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal, detailed his roadmap on April 26 during a hearing before the Finance Committee of the National Assembly.

Concretely: the executive wants to fight against all forms of undeclared work, which consists of not declaring or declaring only part of the hours worked by an employee. The interest for the company is to avoid paying social security contributions. In response to this problem, Gabriel Attal wants to target 5 billion euros in adjustments over the period 2023-2025. For comparison, 3.5 billion euros were adjusted between 2018 and 2022, according to his ministry. But will these efforts be sufficient given the scale of the phenomenon?

Between 5.6 and 7.1 billion in the private sector

The most recent data on undeclared work comes from the report of the Haut Conseil du Financement de la Protection Sociale (HCFPS), published in November 2022. According to him, in the non-agricultural private sector, unpaid contributions represented in 2021 between 2.2 and 2.7% of the expected total. Consequence: a shortfall between 5.6 and 7.1 billion euros in the field of the general scheme and Unédic. But the report specifies that this estimate may include “both intentional omissions (fraud) and reporting errors”.

With regard to the agricultural private sector, the latest assessments date from 2019. The Caisse centrale de la mutualité sociale agricole (CCMSA) had then calculated a shortfall of 500 million euros over the year.

Between 1 and 1.5 billion for micro-entrepreneurs

Undeclared work is particularly common among micro-entrepreneurs. The rate of evaded contributions is between 17% and 26% in 2020, according to the HCFPS. If we apply this rate to 2021, this represents a shortfall of 1 to 1.5 billion dollars in one year.

The report highlights results “higher in construction”, but also among platform users. Two out of three platform workers report lower turnover than recorded transaction amounts. This share climbs to 90% among VTC drivers and 73% for home delivery people. The amounts not or under-declared therefore represent 814 million euros in 2021, i.e. 144 million in contributions.