Thursday October 21, 2021
The federal government fails to prevent it
Tax tricks cost three times more than expected
They are called Cum-Ex, Cum-Cum or Cum-Fake and cause billions in damages in Germany alone. Other countries are also suffering from tax tricks, several media report jointly. One of the reasons is that each European country follows its own rules.
According to an international media research, the tax damage caused by cum-ex deals and similar tax tricks is three times as high as previously assumed. Overall, the tax losses amount to around 150 billion eurosAs explained by the Correctiv organization, among others. In addition to Germany and the USA, at least ten other European countries were victims of tax tricks between 2000 and 2020. The total damage in Germany was therefore almost 36 billion euros.
In addition to the Correctiv research center, 15 international media partners took part in the research, including the ARD magazine “Panorama” as well as the British BBC and the French newspaper “Le Monde”. The federal government has so far not been able to stop the tax tricks, it said.
A particular problem is that every European country follows its own rules when pursuing tax tricks. No European country is ready to take the lead and coordinate efforts, is the assessment of the research. The authorities pointed to a lack of effective tools to combat tax evasion.
Investigations against more than 1000 suspects
The damage, however, is enormous: the tax tricks with names like Cum-Ex, Cum-Cum or Cum-Fake have caused at least 192 million euros in damage in Germany alone since 2009, according to a team of economists from the University of Mannheim. In the period from 2000 to 2020, the total damage in Germany amounted to 35.9 billion euros. According to research, the Cologne public prosecutor’s office determined a total of more than 1000 suspects.
It was only at the end of July that the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled that cum-ex transactions are a criminal offense. With this tax trick, an unpaid capital gains tax is asserted against the tax authorities and unlawfully refunded by them.
According to a report in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the Munich public prosecutor’s office is also investigating around 100 suspects on suspicion of tax evasion. They are said to have declared profits from trading in certificates to the tax authorities once, but claimed losses twice. In this way, they should have succeeded in significantly reducing the tax payments actually due. Defense lawyers on the case deny this allegation.