Berlin 20 August : German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has denied having influence in the multi-million euro tax fraud case brought against the Hamburg-based Warburg Bank, in a Parliamentary hearing on the sprawling “Cum-Ex” trading scheme that aims to fraudulently defraud tax authorities.After being quizzed on Friday for the second time by the state’s committee on parliamentary reform in Hamburg, Scholz maintained that “there was no any political interference whatsoever” according to the DPA news agency.
The committee will decide the extent to which Scholz or other top Social Democratic politicians had used their influence to prevent Warburg Bank from repaying 47 million euros ($47.2 million) in taxes.
The bank was associated in the notorious Cum-Ex scheme, in which traders in Europe utilize an illegal loophole to move shares back and forth at a high speed, between parties at when dividends were distributed, in order to receive tax refunds that they had not actually paid.
The Chancellor is under scrutiny by the scandal that dates all the way back to his tenure as Hamburg’s mayor.of Hamburg.
The committee is concerned with three meetings between Scholz and the Warburg Bank’s co-owners Max Warburg and Christian Olearius, in 2016 and 2017.
Scholz admitted to having attended the meetings during his initial grilling however, he stated that he was unable to recall the contents of his discussions which is which is a position he reiterated on Friday.
According to Olearius his testimony, following the first meeting, Scholz had suggested writing an open letter of defense to Hamburg’s state minister of finance Peter Tschentscher, in which the recovery of 47 million euros in incorrectly returned capital gains tax was portrayed as insufficient.
Tschentscher who is now Hamburg’s mayor, subsequently forwarded the letter to tax authorities who made a decision just a few hours later, in contrast to the original plans to allow the 47-million euros claims to be cancelled because of the law of limitations.
Scholz declared on Friday that tax evasion is not a trivial issue and that he was conscious of this.
So, “there was no preferential treatment of Warburg or Olearius”, he added.
Opposition parties have criticised Scholz for his insufficiency of transparency regarding the matter.
The head of the Christian Democrats (CDU), Friedrich Merz, said it was unlikely that Scholz did not remember the topic of talks, given their significance and the amount of the money involved.
A fellow CDU politician Richard Seelmaecker went so far as to request Scholz’s resignation along with the resignation of Tschentscher.
The head of the extreme-right AfD party, Alice Weidel, said in an announcement: “If, as Chancellor, he cannot clear up the suspicion of corruption, and may thus be vulnerable to pressure, he is not fit for the most important office in politics of this country and should leave.”
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