Before the elections in Hamburg, the SPD blows an icy wind in the face: did Olaf Scholz, as the mayor of the city at the time, cost tens of millions? The investigation is ongoing.
- In 2016, the tax authorities had a Warburg Bank tax liability lapse.
- What does a meeting of the then mayor Olaf Scholz have to do with the head of the bank ?
- This is an unfavorable time for the SPD - after all, citizenship elections take place in a week.
Hamburg - After the meeting of the then Mayor Olaf Scholz with the boss of the Warburg Bank , which was heavily burdened in the "cum-ex" scandal , the pressure on the Hamburg SPD increases - just a week before the citizens' election, despite good polls. The federal taxpayers demanded that Scholz's successor Peter Tschentscher be given complete information , the left a committee of inquiry and the FDP a special meeting of the budget committee before the election on February 23 (click here for Wahl-O-Mat).
Germany suffered billions in damage from “cum-ex” business
In “cum-ex” transactions, shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement were moved back and forth between several parties around the dividend date. In the end, the tax authorities no longer knew who the papers belonged to . Tax authorities reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid at all. The state suffered a billion dollar damage :
According to media reports, the tax authorities had a tax liability of Warburg Bank of EUR 47 million from 2009 that was time- barred .
The green coalition partner also sees "still many unanswered questions", for example regarding the limitation of the repayment of 47 million euros in taxpayers' money, as parliamentary group leader Anjes Tjarks said on Friday. "Peter Tschentscher, then the finance senator, had to explain how this could have happened," Tjarks told dpa .
Scholz and Tschentscher: political influence in Hamburg?
"And there are also questions regarding the meeting between Olaf Scholz and (the former Warburg bank manager) Christian Olearius, " Tjarks said. The impression of political influence during ongoing tax investigations should be clarified urgently. He also finds it problematic that Scholz - today's Federal Minister of Finance - only wants to comment on this after the citizens' election in the budget committee of the Bundestag , said Tjarks.
# CumEx scandal becomes a campaign issue in #Hamburg. Remarkable how Olaf Scholz rides in his successor Peter Tschentscher, regardless of (vote) losses ... via @zeitonline #PanoramaARD https://t.co/hXlt5dGfOB
- robert bongen (@robsonte) February 14, 2020FDP parliamentary leader Anna von Treuenfels-Frowein said that the citizens had to find out whether "Tschentscher had" given "their tax money to a large private bank." There were serious accusations in the room. "We demand complete clarification."
Tschentscher rejected the suspicion of interference . "There is no political influence on decisions by the tax authorities in Hamburg," he said in the ZDF morning magazine . There are no outside parties in the tax process. "The tax process is led by the tax offices and the tax law experts of the tax authority, and the decisions are made there strictly according to legal criteria."
On February 23, the Hamburg elected a new state parliament. The SPD with the First Mayor Tschentscher is in the favorites position.
PF / dpa
