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Chancellor's fight: Scholz catches up with old scandals - economist leverages Laschet's election promise

2021-09-16T08:15:06.601Z


Will Olaf Scholz be the next Federal Chancellor? There are allegations against the apparently most popular contender that question this. Armin Laschet gets entangled in contradictions.


Will Olaf Scholz be the next Federal Chancellor?

There are allegations against the apparently most popular contender that question this.

Armin Laschet gets entangled in contradictions.

Berlin / Munich - Olaf Scholz is still ahead of Armin Laschet in the polls - even though the SPD candidate for Chancellor * is being fired from all cylinders.

"When you see the number of financial scandals he is involved in," you ask yourself more and more whether Olaf Scholz is really the right Federal Chancellor for the Federal Republic of Germany, "said CDU economic expert Friedrich Merz on Wednesday at a joint appearance with Laschet in Stuttgart.

Green finance expert Lisa Paus said in the Berliner Zeitung: “Scholz did not help to clear up several scandals, but tried to cover them up.

Suddenly he had memory gaps the size of a crater.

But they are not credible with a control freak like Scholz, who is otherwise informed about every detail. ”We shed light on the allegations in more detail.

Olaf Scholz: SPD Chancellor candidate inactive in dubious financial scandals

Cum-ex affair:

This involves stock deals in which the state was cheated of at least ten billion euros by reimbursing a tax that was only paid once several times.

For this purpose, blocks of shares were traded around the dividend date, i.e. with (cum) and without (ex) dividend entitlement.

This confusion made it unclear who was entitled to a refund of the automatically paid capital gains tax.

In the end, it was reimbursed several times.

Hamburg's Warburg Bank also benefited from this and now has to repay more than 176 million euros.

Scholz is accused of having, as mayor of the Hanseatic city, influenced the fact that the tax office did not pursue these millions of refunds.

The suspicion of interference is fueled by a joint meeting between State Secretary Kukies, the former SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs and Warburg banker Christian Olearius.

“You can’t explain Scholz’s attempts to disguise his contacts to the Warburg Bank in any other way than that he’s directly involved,” said the Green Paus in the

Berliner Zeitung

.

“Olaf Scholz only admitted the facts little by little, only to say that it was not news.

It is very clear: Olaf Scholz has something to hide. "

Chancellor candidate Scholz: Misconduct of the finance minister just negligence?

Wirecard affair:

Scholz is accused of having failed the financial supervisory authority BaFin, which is subordinate to him, because it was unable to uncover * the Wirecard fraud. The committee of inquiry meeting in June could not prove any political responsibility to Scholz. The opposition complains, however, that many documents are kept under lock and key. It is still unclear what Finance State Secretary Jörg Kukies discussed over breakfast with the then Wirecard boss Markus Braun, said Paus.

Raid over FIU:

The Berlin public prosecutor is examining an investigation against the civil servant finance state secretary Wolfgang Schmidt.

The reason is the partial publication of the judicial search warrant on the raid in the Federal Ministry of Finance on Twitter.

Scholz said that Schmidt had told him that the controversial tweet was "legally in order", but that this will now be "resolved in an orderly process".

With his tweet, Schmidt wanted to expose the “wrong impression” that employees of the Federal Ministry were being investigated.

He wanted to correct that by publishing parts of the search warrant so that “the public can get an idea of ​​the facts for themselves”.


The raid was about the money laundering special unit of the customs, FIU, which is accused of thwarting punishments, because they had not passed on information from banks about money laundering to the police and the judiciary.

At the request of the Greens, FDP and Left Scholz, the Bundestag finance committee wants to question the raid in a special session on Thursday.

Armin Laschet: The Union's candidate for chancellor is entangled in contradictions

Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet * warns urgently of the tax increases demanded by the SPD and the Greens for higher earners.

"Especially after the pandemic, tax increases are poison for economic recovery," says the 8-point economic paper that Laschet and Friedrich Merz presented on Wednesday.

But according to financial experts, Laschet's own tax promises cannot be financed if the Union wants to hold onto the debt brake at the same time. "If its immediate program is to be realistic, the Union must rethink its position on the debt brake," said the economist Jens Südekum, member of the scientific advisory board of the Federal Ministry of Economics *. The budget gaps in the double-digit billion range that can be expected from Laschet's promise cannot be filled by economic growth alone.

According to the

Handelsblatt

, the

Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) calculated

that the relief for families promised by Laschet in the final spurt of the election campaign (including more child benefits, higher tax child allowance) would cost around ten billion euros.

According to the Institute for Economic Research (IW), the complete abolition of solos for the top ten percent of income earners, which is also planned by the Union, would cost a further ten billion euros.

In the ZDF summer interview, Laschet said that tax cuts could only be made if there was financial leeway.

* Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-09-16

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