In the mid-1930s, the trial of a wealthy republican dignitary suspected of having thrilled the taxman had fascinated the United States. The historian Romain Huret exhumes this forgotten affair, which echoes contemporary tax optimization practiced among the wealthiest.
by Marc-Olivier Bherer
Book. A senior political official taken in a tax avoidance affair, there is undoubtedly not a better illustration of cynicism that rages today. Donald Trump boasted of it during the presidential campaign in 2016 and, after the recent publication of his income statements, the Americans were able to see the extent of his inventiveness to reduce his contributions to the taxman. But the accounting creativity of our leaders is not a new phenomenon. This is what Romain Huret, historian specialist in the United States, director of studies at the EHESS, in an investigation removed on a business today, says, but which marks a turning point in America in the 1930s.
In 1935 began the “3 million dollars” from Andrew Mellon. Opulent banker with aristocratic maintenance, he held the post of Minister of Finance from 1921 to 1932, that is during these crazy years of stock market speculation which led to the Great Depression. Defeated in the 1932 presidential election, the Republicans attended the arrival of the administration of the democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), who estimates that the 1931 income declaration of Mr. Mellon is fraudulent.
The latter presented as a merger the sale of a steelworks, so as not to pay the tax taken from this type of operation. The purchase of paintings from great masters from the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg, also arouses suspicion. The transaction, carried out while the United States did not recognize the communist regime, would have had philanthropic aims, according to Mellon, but the acquired works had never been presented to the public. The deduction claimed by the former minister was therefore unjustified.
privileges
The charges are complex and appear founded, but nothing is won in advance, especially since the trial is eminently political. President Roosevelt, his gaze turned towards the 1936 election, seeks to discredit his republican opponents by attacking one of their main representatives. The White House also seeks to highlight the privileges established by capitalism before the New Deal.
Andrew Mellon relies on a formidable lawyer, Frank J. Hogan, to whom the administration opposes a young lawyer promised to an illustrious future, Robert H. Jackson. It was he who will represent the United States at Nuremberg trials in 1945-1946. Romain Huret brilliantly stages these actors, notably thanks to the access he obtained at the minutes of the trial that we thought was lost.
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