Tax scandal trial ends

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33462, 18 February 1974, Page 13

Tax scandal trial ends

f.V.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) PARIS, Feb. 17. . A tax-fraud scandal with political implications has ended in Paris with the sentencing of a senior tax inspector and his brother, a Government financial advisor. What had become known as the Dega scandal was a product of the French satirical weekly,“ldle Canard Enchaine,” which published, on November 3, 1971, a copy of the tax returns of the former Prime Minister, Mr Jacques Chaban-Delmas. The resulting inquiry by the Ministry of Finance led to the. Dega case, which, though marked by political undertones, unfolded without a single political figure being named. Edouard Dega, a former tax inspector for the capital’s sixteenth arrondissement, was sent to prison for three vears, 18 months of his sentence being suspended, and fined 30,000 francs (about $4700) for fraud and corruption. His brother, Goerges Dega, a Government financial adviser who worked for Mr Chaban-Delmas, was imprisoned for six months and fined 10,000 francs (about $1550) for complicitv. About 34 other people implicated in the case, including the widow of the editor, Louis Hachette, the film director, Bernard Borderie, and a former Minister, Mr Andre Cornu, received suspended sentences or were fined.