norme supérieure est commune avec

05:59 Apr 4 

i.e. not avoiding taxes.

They do that by using for their consolidated accounts the accounting standards of the EU - the ones that they must use anyway, being the ones that trump all other standards if the company is based in EU.

IOW norme supérieure = the one that overrides all other.

Because they refrain from using some other accounting standards that would result in less tax to pay, there is no risk that they could be accused of tax avoidance.

This text makes prefect sense to me. As confirmed by "L’objectif premier de la politique fiscale du Groupe est la sécurité juridique et la stabilité à long terme" IOW "we want to stay legally safe, we have not interest in some short term gains through tax avoidance schemes"

BTW The accounting rules DO HAVE an impact on what will be considered as "the taxable income", and if the taxable income changes, then the amount of tax to pay on it WILL also change. The choice of accounting rules can make a dramatic difference in the final amount of taxes to pay - ask Google, Amazon and Co for details ...

14:02 Apr 3 

then, but a reference to EU law as a whole: the group is subject to overarching EU tax laws, and it also prepares its consolidated accounts according to EU rules (=EU-IFRS).

It is hard to see why exactly that is worth mentioning, though. The accounting rules for consolidated fin. stmts have no bearing on tax law and vice versa.

13:52 Apr 3 

It's a short section, but the next sentence is: "Dans ce prolongement, il est à noter que le taux effectif d’impôt du Groupe est légèrement supérieur au taux d’impôt sur les sociétés en France, où le siège d’X est établi." Next paragraph begins:
L’objectif premier de la politique fiscale du Groupe est la sécurité juridique et la stabilité à long terme :" (followed by four examples, one of which is: "X acquitte ses impôts et taxes dans les pays où ses activités sont localisées dans le respect des normes nationales et des conventions fiscales internationales ;")

13:25 Apr 3 

and it sounds to me like a roundabout way of saying that the group does most of its business in Europe and prepares consolidated accounts under EU-IFRS. That said, my accountancy brain struggles to see why that is relevant to the section on tax risk, so I would like to know what comes next.

08:52 Apr 2 

but for the sake of argument, "whose higher accounting standard is also applied to consolidated financial statements", i.e. designed for application within Europe, it is also applied to the accounts of European companies with European holdings. Unless financial experts can tell me there are in fact two sets of accounting standards, one for application within Europe and another, identical at least in part, for application to overseas holdings.