A lengthy
Swiss-German dispute on how to catch wealthy tax evaders has escalated on news
that Switzerland has issued arrest warrants for three German tax inspectors.
The
Dusseldorf-based government of Germany's most-populous state North
Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has confirmed that Swiss prosecutors want three NRW tax
inspectors arrested for alleged "economic espionage."
NRW premier
Hannelore Kraft said on Saturday she was outraged by the development. "The
NRW tax inspectors were only doing their duty to chase German tax cheats who
had put their untaxed money in Swiss bank accounts," she said.
Outraged by Swiss warrants - NRW's Premier Kraft |
The affair
- initially reported by the newspaper Bild am Sonntag - goes back two years to
a stolen CD that exposed German customers of the Credit Suisse bank. It was
purchased in 2010 by NRW, reportedly for 2.5 million euros (3.2 million
dollars), enabling NRW prosecutors to extend tax evasion probes within Germany.
German
Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, reacting to the new spat while
attending EU talks in Copenhagen, said he saw no connection between the Swiss
warrants and a draft German-Swiss deal. Switzerland was "just as
independent" as Germany in its tax set-up, he said.
That
pending deal would allow German tax evaders to make one-time payments to German
tax authorities to legalize money hidden in Swiss bank accounts. A withholding
tax would similarly extract revenues from future asset earnings in Switzerland.
Draft deal
controversial in Germany
The accord,
however, still needs the ratification by Germany's upper chamber of parliament,
the Federal Council, which represents Germany's 16 regional states, including
NRW.
Within the
council, known in German as the Bundesrat, Chancellor Angela Merkel's
center-right coalition lacks a majority.
Tax on
money from German citizens in secret Swiss bank accounts (21.09.2011)
Members of
Germany's opposition Social Democrats, including Kraft, as well as the
opposition Greens have been pressing for tougher terms than those originally
negotiated for the deal.
Kraft,
whose governing Social Democrat party faces a snap election in NRW in May, told
Bild am Sonntag that "big loopholes" allowing tax dishonesty
"can't be explained to honest citizens."
The Swiss
federal prosecutor's office said on Saturday that it had sought legal
assistance from German authorities in an investigation into the theft of Credit
Suisse data.
The office
said it had a "concrete suspicion that concrete orders were issued from
Germany to spy on information" of Switzerland's second-largest bank.
Experts
have estimated that up to 200 billion euros of illegal untaxed money from
Germany sits stashed in Swiss accounts.
ipj/tj (dpa, AFP, AP, Reuters)
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