Cum-Ex affair: Display against Chancellor Olaf Scholz
Created: 02/17/2022, 17:24
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
According to a report, defense attorney Gerhard Strate reported Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher.
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
The Cum-Ex affair catches up with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
According to the report, a criminal defense lawyer has now reported against Scholz and Hamburg's mayor Peter Tschentscher.
Hamburg – The prominent lawyer Gerhard Strate reported to Chancellor Olaf Scholz* (SPD) and Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) for aiding and abetting tax evasion.
This is reported by
Manager Magazin.
Lawyer shows Chancellor Scholz and Mayor Tschentscher
According to Strate, the two politicians in the Cum-Ex affair * had become "assistants of the tax evaders from the Warburg Bank".
He described the decision of the Hamburg tax authorities in 2016 to waive a multi-million dollar tax refund from the Warburg private bank as an “arbitrary act”.
At the time, Scholz was mayor of Hamburg, and Peter Tschentscher was his successor.
In the case of Cum-Ex, banks and institutional investors have repeatedly reclaimed taxes that they did not even pay, thus cheating the state out of billions.
Strate is no stranger: he has worked for ex-VW boss Ferdinand Piëch and financial entrepreneur Carsten Maschmeyer.
Committee examines allegations of interference
A parliamentary investigative committee of the Hamburg Parliament is currently in the process of clarifying allegations that leading SPD politicians may be influencing the tax treatment of the Warburg Bank.
The background is Scholz's meetings with the co-owners of the bank, Max Warburg and Christian Olearius, in 2016 and 2017. Olearius was already under investigation at the time on suspicion of serious tax evasion.
After the first meeting, the tax office for large companies initially waived additional tax claims of 47 million euros when the statute of limitations expired in 2016.
A further 43 million euros were only requested in 2017 after the intervention of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Scholz had acknowledged the meetings in the investigative committee, but stated that he could not remember the content of the talks.
However, he ruled out any influence on the tax procedure*.
With material from the dpa
*Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
