Cahuzac resigned in March 2013 after French investigative website Mediapart claimed the trained surgeon had hidden €600,000 (£503,256, $635,034) from France’s tax authorities for two decades, reports the Financial Times.
He first denied the report, which was published in December 2012. The politician started legal proceedings against Mediapart and swore before parliament that he had never held an account abroad.
Transplanting money
The trial, which concluded on 8 December, revealed that Cahuzac and his now-former wife Patricia Menard moved profits from their hair transplant business offshore during the 1990s.
Investigators discovered that the €600,000 had been moved from Switzerland to a Julius Baer account in Singapore in 2009.
A total of €3.5m was uncovered in secret accounts. Menard kept €2.7m in an Isle of Man account, while about €240,000 was paid into accounts belonging to Cahuzac’s mother.
Menard was jailed for two years.
According to French newspaper Le Monde, Cahuzac and Menard have settled their tax obligations to the tune of around €2.5m.
Holland embarrassment
Cahuzac, who specialised in hair transplants and consultancy work for drug companies, was appointed budget minister when Francois Holland was elected in 2012.
He resigned in 2013 when he admitted to holding the undeclared account identified by Mediapart for over 20 years.
When Holland came to power he made fighting tax evasion a priority. Following the ‘Cahuzac affair’ he ordered his ministers to disclose their personal wealth.
