Germany's expecting to get a good chunk of change |
Switzerland
and Liechtenstein are no longer the tax havens they used to be for wealthy
Germans. Now German authorities are tracking down untaxed funds in the tiny
country of Luxembourg, too.
German
authorities expect to see up to 900 million euros ($1.2 billion) in recovered
taxes after the purchase of a disk containing banking details of thousands of
potential tax evaders.
The finance
ministry in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia confirmed Friday that
it had obtained information on German-held bank accounts at a Luxembourg
subsidiary of HSBC.
The German
Tax Union, whose members are German tax employees, welcomed the news, saying
the purchase of bank data from neighboring countries was the most efficient way
to track down unpaid taxes.
"What's
new is that it's Luxembourg," the union's chairman Thomas Eigenthaler said
in an interview with German press agency dpa.
"We
thought that they were trustworthy there, but we must consider Luxembourg a de
facto tax haven - and assume that this is just the tip of the iceberg," he
added.
Eigenthaler
estimated that some 50 billion euros in untaxed German funds were hidden in
Luxembourg.
He said the
investigation in Luxembourg had gone too far to allow tax cheaters to pay up
and got off scot-free, as has been the case in similar incidents in Germany.
In
September, Swiss bank Credit Suisse agreed to pay Germany 150 million euros to
save its staff from prosecution for allegedly helping wealthy German tax
dodgers.
Author: David Levitz (dpa, Reuters)
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