Deutsche Welle, 2 February 2014
One of
Germany's leading feminists, Alice Schwarzer, has admitted that she held a
Swiss bank account since the 1980s. The confession followed a report in
Spiegel, which Schwarzer called "character assassination."
Alice
Schwarzer - leading German feminist, writer and publisher of the German
political women's magazine EMMA - accused news magazine Spiegel on Sunday of
trying to damage her reputation by reporting on her recent payment - "a
six-figure sum" - in back taxes to the German tax revenue office. The
Spiegel article had been published earlier in the day.
In an
online statement on her website, the prominent German feminist admitted to
disclosing her Swiss bank account to German tax authorities this year and
subsequently paying 200,000 euros ($270,000) plus default interest. She said
she had opened the account in the 1980s and had wired taxed earnings to it over
the years without paying taxes on the accumulated interest.
"The
[Swiss bank] account was a mistake," Schwarzer said. "Everything is
legal now. I'm not one of the thousands with unreported earnings [hidden away]
in a Switzerland."
'I made a
mistake'
"Yes,
I made a mistake, I was negligent…[but] my taxes have been paid,"
Schwarzer said in her statement, with the title "On private matters,"
on her website. Given the status of her taxes, Schwarzer said she now had
"the right to privacy and secrecy in tax matters."
The
well-known German feminist said she had opened the account at a time when she
felt the public uproar over her feminist views was so strong that she had begun
considering leaving the country. A foreign account with secure money was there
for her "peace of mind."
The issue
of tax havens topped headlines in Germany last year with the release of
"Offshore Leaks" - a series of reports on over 100,000 alleged tax
dodgers across the globe - as well as revelations of tax evasion by Uli Hoeness, the president of Bayern Munich football club. A failed attempt by
Merkel's previous government to reach a bilateral agreement with Switzerland,
rejected in the upper house of German parliament by the Social Democrats for
not going far enough, had also dominated the headlines at the end of 2012.
German law
provides immunity from prosecution to those who voluntarily disclose and repay
previously unreported taxes. According to a recent report by German news daily
Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, the number of people taking advantage of the immunity
law tripled in 2013 as tax evasion came into the national spotlight.
'Character
assassination'
The women's
rights champion furthermore accused Spiegel of acting in the interest of those
who might want to hurt her reputation because of her vehement public opposition
to big money makers, such as prostitution - the EMMA magazine's current feature
topic. She also cited a German law called "Ehegattensplitting," which
allows married couples - and now same-sex partners after a Constitutional Courtorder - to pool their combined incomes when paying income taxes. Schwarzer
described this as a way that the state subsidizes
"housewife-marriages."
"There
are mistakes you can't fix. Character assassination, for example. Not filing
your taxes properly however, as in my case, is one that can be fixed…and that's
exactly what I did," she said.
Spiegel
subsequently printed her response to its report, but has not admitted to any
mistake on its part for reporting her story.
kms/msh (Reuters, dpa)
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