According to a media report, the Federal Ministry of Finance wants to proceed in the future harder against large-scale tax fraud as in the case of the Cum-Ex-business. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) will set up a special unit with a total of 48 posts at the Federal Central Tax Office, reported the "Welt am Sonntag". For the "Task Force against tax structuring models on the capital market" are estimated expenditure of approximately 21 million euros, which are already planned in the federal budget 2020.
With the shuffling of shares with ("cum") and without ("ex") dividend entitlement, investors had invested a lot of money at the expense of the state treasury. Investors were able to reimburse a once paid withholding tax on stock dividends with the help of banks multiple times. According to calculations by tax expert Christoph Spengel of the University of Mannheim, German tax offices alone lost at least 31.8 billion euros between 2001 and 2016.
The tax scandal is also affecting the judiciary. In the first cum-ex-trial, two British ex-stock traders have to answer before the district court of Bonn. According to the indictment, they are said to have brought the German state between 2006 and 2011 by around 440 million euros. The public prosecutor's office Cologne determines against 400 accused ones.
That's how the trickery worked
After closing the cum-ex-loophole, other tax tricks around the dividend distribution initially continued, such as the cum-cum deals. This involves the interaction of foreign investors and local banks.
Scholz wanted to present the new unit on Monday after a meeting with the heads of the tax departments at federal and state governments, reported the "Welt am Sonntag". She should bundle and evaluate "information about patterns of action and actors" in one hand. Provincial authorities, Bafin Financial Supervisory Authority and foreign law enforcement agencies should be able to contact them.