UBS Tax-Evasion Clients Keeping German Prosecutors Busy

2000 tax-avoiders should gird their loins right about now.

Author:
Jon Shazar
Updated:
Jan 14, 2019
Original:
Jan 14, 2016

Yup. They bought CD.

The Germans are not know for throwing their euros around willy-nilly. Just ask Alexis Tsipras. So it should come as no surprise that the Bundesrepublik is making full use of those lists of tax-evaders it illegally bought.

Prosecutors investigating tax fraud in Germany by clients of Swiss bank UBS have launched around 2,000 proceedings, German paper WAZ quoted a state prosecutor as saying….
Investigations into tax dodging began after the state of North Rhine-Westphalia bought a CD containing details of UBS customers in 2012, which related to assets worth 3.5 billion Swiss francs ($3.5 billion).

German prosecutors launch 2,000 tax cases against UBS clients: paper [Reuters]

Banks

Was that wrong? Should they not have done that?

Banks

Maybe €4.5 billion in fines and such will finally teach those Alpine asset-hiders a thing or two?

News

The bank has ran its own internal investigation and found no evidence of wrongdoing but prosecutors are still going to take a look-see themselves. The investigation, being conducted by economic-crimes prosecutors in Mannheim, was started in March against unnamed employees after a tax inquiry in the southwestern state of Baden Wuerttemberg identified suspicious transfers of funds from Germany to Switzerland, allegedly executed by a German taxpayer with the assistance of the Frankfurt-based office of UBS Deutschland AG...In May, prosecutors seized more than 100,000 computer files and other records during a search of the bank's Frankfurt office, Mr. Lintz said. Tax investigators are assessing this material to identify evidence that bank officials acted as accessories to tax evasion, he said. In its statement, UBS Deutschland said that "an internal investigation into the specific allegations has not identified any evidence of misbehavior by UBS Deutschland AG." It said it is cooperating with the criminal investigation. Several investigations of UBS clients in Germany are under way by local prosecutors independent of the Mannheim investigation, Mr. Lintz said. He declined to say how many clients are under investigation. A report in the Thursday edition of German newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten said thousands of bank clients are under investigation. Mr. Lintz declined to confirm that figure. Germany Probes UBS Staff on Tax-Evasion Allegations [WSJ]