The purchase of CDs with stolen data about the Swiss bank accounts of suspected German tax cheats have yielded the state of North-Rhine Westphalia €500 million (SFr 600,700).
This content was published on
2 minutes
swissinfo.ch and agencies
North-Rhine Westphalia’s finance minister, Norbert Walter-Borjans, told a committee of the state parliament on Tuesday that the CDs had so far proved the only effective way “to cast light on the darkness of the Swiss tax Eldorado”.
The money collected was made up of back payments and fines. Since the first CD was purchased in 2010, he said 6000 people had reported themselves.
The theft of the data continues to make waves between Germany and Switzerland. At the end of March the Swiss legal authorities issued arrest warrants for three German tax inspectors over the purchase of the CDs. They are suspected of “economic espionage”.
North Rhine-Westphalia paid an informant €2.5 million for the first CD, which contained about 1,500 names. The informant was convicted last December of violating bank secrecy laws and given a suspended prison sentence and fined SFr3,500.
On April 5 Switzerland and Germany agreed on a new tax agreement. However, it still has to be ratified by the parliaments of both countries.
Walter-Borjans said it was only because of the CD purchase that the two sides had discussed the tax deal at all. But he said it was still not good enough and should not be approved.
The German federal government does not have a majority in the chamber representing the German states. It therefore needs the support of the states with Social Democrat governments – like North Rhine-Westphalia – to get the deal through.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Swiss hope tax deal with Germany sets example
This content was published on
Germany hopes the accord will generate billion of euros in tax revenues, while the Swiss government praised it as a model for agreements with other countries. The deal, still to be ratified by the parliaments of both countries, comes after criticism by the European Union and stonewalling by opposition parties in Germany. Under the terms…
This content was published on
But this measure does not mean the US is softening its hard line towards the Swiss banks or that the Obama administration has revised its priorities. The Bloomberg news agency reported on March 27 that the US Justice Office has reduced the number of investigators and prosecutors in its fiscal service by 30 per cent.…
This content was published on
It insisted on Monday that the incident illustrated the need to get a stalled deal on tax evasion approved. Germany’s centre-left opposition condemned the Swiss move when word of it emerged over the weekend. It is part of an investigation into German authorities’ 2010 purchase of a compact disc containing data on suspected tax cheats.…
This content was published on
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office said that it had sought legal assistance from German authorities in an investigation of the theft of Credit Suisse data. Federal prosecutor Michael Lauber confirmed on Swiss public radio on Saturday that there were serious indications of intelligence gathering carried out against the Credit Suisse bank and that a request for…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.