Investigation committee requested: Hamburg examines Scholz connection to Cum-Ex

The question of the involvement of Hamburg SPD politicians in the Cum-Ex scandal will deal with a separate committee of inquiry in the future. The applicants are also interested in the meetings between the Warburg Bank involved and Finance Minister Scholz.

The cum-ex scandal becomes a case for a parliamentary committee of inquiry in Hamburg. The CDU, the Left and the FDP MP Anna von Treuenfels-Frowein made their announcements true and officially applied for such a body. The parliamentary groups announced that the application had been submitted for the next citizenship meeting on October 28. It is considered certain that the body will be used, since the CDU and the left together have the necessary number of votes of a fifth of all MPs.

In essence, it should be about the question of whether leading SPD politicians had any influence on the decisions of the tax office to issue the Warburg Bank, which was involved in the cum-ex scandal, with a double-digit million dollar claim. Specifically, it is about the then Mayor of Hamburg and today's Federal Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz as well as the current mayor and then Senator for Finance Peter Tschentscher.

The background to the committee are meetings between Scholz in 2016 and 2017 with Warburg co-owner Christian Olearius, against whom investigations were underway on suspicion of serious tax evasion in connection with cum-ex deals. Later, Hamburg allowed an additional tax claim of 47 million euros to become statute-barred, another 43 million euros was only claimed after the Federal Ministry of Finance intervened. The meetings had become known through entries in the diary of Olearius, which also suggested a close connection between bank representatives and the responsible tax officer.

Scholz denies allegations

Scholz and Tschentscher have already rejected all such allegations several times. Both in the Finance Committee of the Bundestag and in the Bundestag itself, SPD Chancellor candidate Scholz emphasized that there was no influence. Hamburg's Senator for Finance Andreas Dressel, also from the SPD, made a similar statement at a special meeting of the citizens' budget committee.

But that's not enough for the CDU and the left. Representatives of the Senate, the tax office and the tax administration have repeatedly referred to tax secrecy in order not to have to comment, according to the application. "The political representatives who were responsible for the decisions at the time, such as the then First Mayor Olaf Scholz, put forward gaps in memory, although they are otherwise not known for them."

Investors took advantage of a loophole in the law for cum-ex deals. Around the dividend cut-off date, shares with ("cum") and without ("ex") dividend entitlements were shifted back and forth between several participants. In the end, it was no longer clear to the tax authorities who owned the papers. Tax offices reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid. The state suffered an estimated loss of around twelve billion euros.