As of: 09/21/2022 7:16 p.m
Officials have searched the offices of the auditing and consulting firm KMPG in Frankfurt in connection with the investigation into the Cum-Ex tax scandal. It’s not the first crackdown on the affair.
In connection with the cum-ex scandal about tax deals at the expense of the state treasury, investigators searched the offices of the auditor KPMG in Frankfurt. The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne is executing search warrants against a consulting company in Frankfurt, the authority said. In addition, the private homes of five lawyers and tax consultants who used to work there would also be searched.
Search for emails
“The measures are related to cum-ex transactions that are the subject of the proceedings and related tax evasion models,” the authority said. It’s all about finding relevant emails or other written correspondence. About 60 prosecutors, tax investigators and police officers were involved in the search.
The auditing and consulting company KPMG confirmed that the Frankfurt branch had been visited by investigators. “We are fully cooperating with the authorities,” the company said.
In cum-ex deals, blocks of shares were shifted back and forth around the dividend record date – with the result that tax offices reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid at all. The state suffered billions in damage. The first cum-ex criminal cases have already ended with convictions.
In June, investigators had already searched the offices of DekaBank in Frankfurt because of the Cum-Ex affair. There have also been searches in this context at the auditor PwC, the German branch of the US bank Morgan Stanley, the headquarters of the Swedish bank SEB in Frankfurt and the Association of Foreign Banks.
New questions for Scholz confidants
The biggest tax scandal in recent German economic history is also still being dealt with politically. In Hamburg, the parliamentary investigative committee of the citizenry is investigating why the Hanseatic city did not demand the return of around 47 million euros in tax money from the Warburg private bank. The decision comes during the term of office of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz as First Mayor in Hamburg.
At the next meeting of the body on September 30, the committee of inquiry wants to interview Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt and Olaf Scholz’s office manager. Both are considered to be close confidants of the chancellor.
Scholz also denied any influence as mayor of Hamburg during his second interrogation as a witness in mid-August. At the same time, on most of the committee’s questions, he said he couldn’t remember.