Cum-Ex affair: the majority of Germans doubt Scholz's credibility
Created: 08/28/2022, 06:25
By: Christoph Gschossmann
Had to face the investigative committee in the Ex-Cum affair: Chancellor Olaf Scholz is sitting in his seat on the Senate bench in the plenary hall.
© Christian Charisius/dpa/archive image
The Cum-Ex affair burdened Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
According to a new poll, Germans have a strong opinion about its credibility.
Munich - Is the chancellor credible or not?
A new survey does not reflect well on Olaf Scholz.
According to a survey, more than 70 percent of Germans do not believe that the Chancellor has no memories of discussions with representatives of the Hamburg Warburg Bank, which was involved in the Cum-Ex affair.
Even a majority of SPD supporters of 56 percent takes this view, as the representative survey published on Saturday by the Kantar Institute for the magazine
Focus
revealed.
Only eleven percent believe Scholz in the matter.
Cum-Ex: Scholz sees himself relieved after testimony
In the past week, Scholz had repeatedly referred to the Cum-Ex investigative committee in the Hamburg Parliament that he could no longer remember the contents of three meetings with the owners of the Warburg Bank in 2016 and 2017.
These meetings fueled the suspicion that the then mayor of the Hanseatic city and the bankers might have made arrangements to protect the bank.
After his testimony, Scholz felt relieved.
Cum Ex
In “cum-ex” transactions, financial players shifted blocks of shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement around the dividend date in a complicated system and then had taxes reimbursed multiple times.
The state lost billions in this way.
In July 2021, the Federal Court of Justice made it clear that this was not just a matter of exploiting a legal loophole, but of criminal tax evasion.
Through the publication of diary entries, meetings between Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the shareholders Olearius and Max Warburg during his time as Hamburg mayor became known.
Before the "Cum-Ex" investigative committee of the Hamburg Parliament, Scholz had again rejected any influence on the tax procedure of the Hamburg bank involved in the scandal last week.
After Scholz's meeting, the Hamburg tax authorities initially waived the repayment of millions of euros in illegally refunded taxes by the bank.
In cum-ex deals, the German state was cheated by a total of more than 30 billion euros.
(cg with material from AFP and dpa)
That the Russian propaganda machine defames the West is nothing new.
This time it went well below the belt against Olaf Scholz.
