Bundestag Puts its Hands on CD from Switzerland
Is the state allowed to buy a illegaly taken list with names of tax dodgers? This is one of the most discussed questions in Germany at the moment.
Background
According to the German government a Swiss citizen is offering them a CD with names of tax dodgers for about 2.5 million Euro. This must have been about one week ago. Why am I saying “according to the government”? You will see later. The governmental data protection officer positioned against the plans of the government to buy the CD very quickly. He said the state should not support illegal acitivities by paying money for it. Still, both chancellor Merkel and the Financial Minister Schäuble agreed on buying the CD.
Some days later, about rhe 4th of February, both lawyers of the state and of North Rhine-Westphalia came to the conclusion that the acquisition would be legal, or at least that the officials buying it and analyzing it could not be sentenced afterwards. Moreover, they even had the duty to use business secrets against tax dodgers.
On the same day estimates also saed that the state could gain between 200 and 400 million Euro by buying the CD. This would even outnumber the payments after a similar incident with data from Liechtenstein, which led to payments of 180 million Euro until now.
Swiss Journalist guesses it’s just a Bluff
Hubert Moser, journalist for the tagesanzeiger, a Swiss news paper, wrote (German) on the 5th of February, he believed the whole incident was just a bluff to make people supply an amended return.
He explains his thoughts in comparison to the last event when the state bought a CD from Liechtenstein. Back then, the acquisition was not published until the first popular tax dodger, leader of Deutsche Post Zumwinkel, was arrested. However, these days there are huge announces on what to do with the CD, if it should be bought etc. The whole event already lasts one week which could be an indication for the non-existance of the CD.
However, I am wondering why should there be reports of lawyers proposing to buy the CD when the state cannot really buy something in the end? I mean, now they have gone so far, there are not many possibilites to stop it anymore. On the other hand, politicians always can say: “Oh, no, we decided the other way round now, but we do not have reasons.” People would forget it soon.
Between Tax Haven and Banking Secrecy
In Germany countries like Switzerland and Liechtenstein are often refered to as tax havens, because taxes are lower there and they insist on the privacy of their clients. The rivalry between Germany and Switzerland was already obvious last year when the Financial Office complained about Switzerland not accepting the OECD standards against tax offences. These standards include that states exchange information about tax bodging when there is initial suspicion.
An interesting aspect is that there will be a meeting between the ministers of German speaking countries in Europe (Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Switzerland) about the OECD-standards and the automatical information exchange within the EU. Austria does not want to participate in this exchange while there are not the same standards in Great Britain and the US. Switzerland also only negotiates about the OECD-standards, but they are not member of the EU, anyway. Considering this meeting, the current incident might be an attempt to put Switzerland under pressure in the debate about OECD-standards so that they have to accept it due to medial concentration and international attention.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
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