Sep 14, 2022 14:46
1 yr ago
34 viewers *
French term

compte taxi

French to English Bus/Financial Finance (general)
This appears in a text about money laundering:

- compte taxi destiné à réaliser des opérations de blanchiment

No other info or context given, it appears in a list. thanks!

Proposed translations

+2
10 mins
Selected

money mule account

Explained here... https://www.economie.gouv.fr/tracfin/cas-type-n°-2-systeme-c...

And I then went around trying to find out what the English name for this might be.

Note confidence: there may be a more accurate equivalent term.
Peer comment(s):

agree Daryo : sounds like a fairly accurate description
1 day 22 hrs
Thanks
agree AllegroTrans : or just "mule account"
2 days 2 hrs
Thanks. Not so sure about that: a "money mule" is a newer coinage than, and coined from, the term "drugs mule", itself coined from "mule" as in beast of burden. So it's probably necessary to be specific.
Something went wrong...
2 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "thanks"
-2
16 hrs

Account domiciliated in a tax haven

My translation is in line with Phil's reference information
Peer comment(s):

neutral Mpoma : Nah. 3 links showing examples of use have been given here so far... you have got the wrong end of the stick completely. It's both more specific and less specific.
2 hrs
neutral Emmanuella : Non, désolée
3 hrs
disagree Daryo : you misinterpreted the ref. - there is no need for any "tax haven" to be included in this particular recipe // all parties involved could be from the same block in the same town, wouldn't make any difference.
1 day 6 hrs
disagree AllegroTrans : The account could be anywhere, although admittedly tax havens are often used
1 day 10 hrs
Something went wrong...

Reference comments

10 mins
Reference:

Definition

Le compte taxi était une arnaque [fraud] à la TVA dont le but n'était pas, comme pour la drogue, d'injecter des liquidités dans le système bancaire, mais, au contraire, d'en retirer. Exemple : un atelier de couture clandestin fournit des marchandises à un grossiste et réclame d'être rémunéré en cash. Pour obtenir ces espèces, le grossiste fait un chèque à un " taxi ", société fictive disposant d'un compte bancaire, qui lui fournit en échange une fausse facture. Le taxi porte le chèque à la banque et, quelques jours plus tard, vide son compte en espèces. Toute la chaine de travail au noir peut alors être rémunérée. La TVA, qui a été facturée mais n'a pas été réglée, constitue le bénéfice de l'opération.
http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1990/05/12/comptes-ta...
I don't think a literal translation works, but I may be wrong.
Peer comments on this reference comment:

agree writeaway : Nothing beats doing some research.
7 mins
Yes, I think the asker should at least have got this far.
agree Daryo
1 day 22 hrs
agree AllegroTrans
2 days 7 hrs
Something went wrong...
2 hrs
Reference:

Links about société-taxi

I happen to be working on a money laundering-related document myself at the moment, so have been using a lot of FATF (Financial Action Task Force) documents for research purposes. (For those who haven't heard of it, FATF is a global intergovernmental body that makes recommendations to countries as to how they can tackle money laundering, financing of terrorism and other such nasties). https://www.fatf-gafi.org/

FATF is headquartered in France, and publishes a lot of documents in both French and English. It also has regional divisions which cover different continents.

When I looked up "taxi" to see if it appears in any French FATF documents for which there are English versions, I found one result. I'll post the French sentence first, then the corresponding English one. The highlighting is mine.

L’ASR de l’ACPR décrit certains des risques plus spécifiques impliquant le secteur bancaire, à savoir l’usage des montages complexes et les sociétés-taxis, tandis que l’ASR de l’AMF ne couvre pas le sujet.
https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/mer4/...

The ACPR's SRA describes some of the more specific risks involving the banking sector, namely the use of complex arrangements and shell companies, while the AMF's SRA does not cover the topic.
https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/mer4/...

There is also a previous question about société taxi (NB context was slightly different - VAT fraud), for which a range of suggestions were made:
www.proz.com/kudoz/5074174

NB There might be more than one solution here for all I know, I'm just posting some research results.
Note from asker:
thanks
Peer comments on this reference comment:

agree Daryo : you're on the right track - using invoices from "fake" companies is a pretty old recipe in the French tax-avoider's cookbook.
1 day 19 hrs
Something went wrong...
Term search
  • All of ProZ.com
  • Term search
  • Jobs
  • Forums
  • Multiple search