German Chancellor Scholz could be summoned to the Bundestag over tax scandal
According to news from the German news agency DPA, the CDU/CSU demanded that Scholz, who was Prime Minister of the State of Hamburg in the period 2011-2018, from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), be heard again in the Bundestag. Finance Committee on the scandal.
CDU/CSU Bundestag Vice President Matthias Middelberg, in his letter to the head of the Bundestag Finance Committee, stated that Scholz had used “contradictory statements” in his earlier statements about the scandal, so he should return to the commission and respond. the questions of the deputies.
The deputies want to reveal whether the Hamburg-based Warburg Bank, which was involved in a tax evasion worth 47 million euros during the period in question, received help from Scholz to not pay this debt to the state.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Scholz answered questions from lawmakers about the scandal at the Hamburg State Assembly Investigative Committee on August 19.
According to German press reports at the time, it was reported that Scholz frequently replied “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” to questions put to him by commission deputies, and that he hoped that suspicions and accusations without trials would come to an end.
In the Cum-ex investigation, which is known as the “biggest tax fraud scandal in history” in Germany, it was revealed that wealthy investors and lawyers, especially bankers, systematically entered into complex share agreements with the state to pay for the taxes they had never paid. paid.
Gerhard Strate, one of the country’s best-known criminal defense lawyers, filed a criminal complaint in February accusing Prime Minister Olaf Scholz and former Hamburg mayor Peter Tschentscher of aiding and abetting tax evasion in the Cum-ex scandal, accused of not demanding timely returns of 47 million euros received from the public treasury through operations with Cum-ex shares.
It was also claimed in the German press that Scholz had met and advised on several occasions with Christian Olearis, one of Warburg Bank’s partners, and Warburg Bank donated more than 45,000 euros to the SPD in 2017.
German tax experts say that Cum-ex lost billions of euros to the public treasury in the period 2005-2011. According to German officials, the investigation involved almost 100 banks and at least 1,000 suspects on four continents. (AA)