Samikhsya Bureau
Leading French newspaper Le Monde has on Saturday broken a story about how Anil Ambani has got huge amount of tax relief worth 143.7 million euros after Prime Minister signed a deal with France to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets.
The story is co-authored by journalists Julien Bouissou and Anne Michel. The story, which the authors have written after investigating for months, also seem to reflect Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to benefit Ambani.
In a series of tweets, Boussou has said that French authorities waived taxes worth 143.7 million euros for Anil Ambani’s French based company just a few months after Modi announced his plans to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault.
Anil Ambani has a telecom company registered in France called “Reliance Atlantic Flag France”. The company was investigated by French tax authorities and found liable to pay 60 million euros in taxes for the period 2007 to 2010, says Boussou. “Reliance offered to pay 7.6 million euros as a settlement. The French tax authorities refused. They conducted another investigation for the period 2010 to 2012 and asked for an additional 91 million euros in taxes,” Boussou said.
In April 2015, PM Modi announced plans to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault. By then, the total amount owed by Reliance to the French state in taxes was at least 151 million euros, according to the investigation by Boussou and Michel. “Six months after Modi’s Rafale announcement, the French tax authorities accepted 7.3 million euros from Reliance as a settlement, instead of the much bigger sum of 151 million euros,” he says. “So between February and October 2015, while the French were negotiating the Rafale contract with India, Anil Ambani enjoyed a tax waiver of 143.7 million euros from the French state. Quite a cozy deal, right?” Bouissou tweeted.
The defence ministry dismissed the allegations as “totally inaccurate, tendentious and a mischievous attempt to misinform”. It said that there was no connection between the Rafale deal and tax issues of Anil Ambani’s company.
On the other hand, Anil Ambani’s company Reliance Communications denied any favouritism or gains from tax settlement. In a statement the company said: “During the period under consideration by the French tax authorities (2008-2012), which is nearly 10 years ago, Flag France had an operating loss of Rs.20 crore (2.7 million euros). French tax authorities had raised a tax demand of over Rs.1,100 crore for the same period. As per the French tax settlement process as per law, a mutual settlement was signed to pay Rs.56 crore as a final settlement.”
