The planned special unit of the Federal Ministry of Finance against large-scale tax fraud is also to get powers to the tax investigation. That said a spokeswoman for Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) in Berlin. The unit could start "soon" - the exact date was still unclear.
The so-called task force should collect information and data on tax fraud centrally and also be the point of contact for state authorities. The spokeswoman said Scholz had announced last year, to act more against tax fraud, then a project group was founded.
The "Welt am Sonntag" had reported that the specialized unit at the Federal Central Tax Office should be equipped with 48 posts. 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. "Cum-Ex" is considered the biggest tax scandal in German history.
That's how the trickery worked
The spokeswoman for Scholz said that investigators are currently investigating 499 suspected cases with a volume of 5.5 billion euros. Of that, so far 2.4 billion euros in capital gains tax have been successfully recovered or not even paid out.