The co-founder of the MCG denies having to pay taxes demanded from him by the Cantonal Tax Administration. Story of a colorful audience.
Updated 18 minutes ago—
The co-founder of the Geneva Citizen Movement appeared before the civil court this Thursday morning with his collaborator, his former partner and friends.
Olivier Francey
One hundred and seventy-one francs and 90 cents. This is the amount of the dispute between Eric Stauffer and the Tax Administration of the Canton of Geneva. A paltry sum for an almost surreal hearing this Thursday morning before the Civil Court. And a standoff that brought back, for a day, the former deputy in Geneva, he who went into exile (with his companies) in Valais. Needless to say, the co-founder of the MCG (Geneva Citizen Movement), this “political animal”, obviously did not fail to invite the media to follow his audience. Story.
It’s on the terrace of a Bourg-de-Four café at 9:30 am that Eric Stauffer patiently awaits his turn. He will have time to smoke a few cigarettes and swallow two espressos before joining room B4, on the first floor of the Courthouse. There is also time to look back on its past: an improvised press conference in Naples to denounce the import of waste to Geneva – “my biggest political coup” – or its expulsion from the Geneva parliament by a handful of dumbfounded police. Today, it is a completely different affair which agitates him and which goes back to December 19, 2015, when his business of electronic cigarettes, rue des Rois, is the prey of angry demonstrators. Presumably the same people who will have repainted the facade of the Grand Theater, certainly inspired by pointillism, with large jets of drain oil. The demonstration was unauthorized. Éric Stauffer, for his part, found himself facing dozens of protesters who were certainly hostile to man, to his politics, and apparently to the showcase of his business. He claims to have been armed that day. He will end up being “exfiltrated” by the intervention brigade.
In the viewfinder of the taxman
Since then, his business with three other partners has never reopened. As for its manager, “he went into burn-out,” he says. Except that even closed, the store continued to interest the cantonal tax administration, in terms of capital tax, or the City of Geneva, in terms of business tax. Today, the former mayor of the municipality of Onex is summoned to appear for some 171 francs. “It’s a matter of principle. I believe that a company that has reimbursed all of its suppliers and has had no activity since then does not have to pay these amounts. Even though this demonstration was not authorized and the Canton, and State Councilor Pierre Maudet in particular, never bothered to meet the merchants who had suffered damage. ” However, why not pay the relative pain and turn against the state? “Out of respect for my former position as a member of Parliament, I prefer to give up this path,” he tries to explain.
Eric Stauffer, before the judge of humor certainly cheerful at the sight of a well-furnished room, developed his arguments in a perceptible jubilation. You could almost feel a touch of nostalgia on the part of the tribune, as when he occupied all the space of the Grand Council. Or tried, it is according to, using used or dusty formulas. He who finally promises that he will not return to politics. Only one certainty: the judge of the Civil Court should decide on this case “as soon as possible”.
Posted today at 9:28 p.m.-
