crime
Cum-Ex affair: Raid on auditor PwC
PricewaterhouseCoopers International in Stuttgart. Photo: Marijan Murat/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Cum-ex is now considered the biggest tax scandal in post-war history. Investigators are now looking to the auditor PwC for relevant communication for better clarification.
Investigators searched the offices of the auditing company PwC in Frankfurt for criminal tax proceedings relating to cum-ex transactions against the Swedish bank SEB.
A PwC spokesman confirmed the move and said it was a witness in the process. You cooperate with the authorities. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office said that the search, which has been ongoing since Wednesday, is aimed at “finding relevant communication in the form of emails and other written correspondence”.
In addition to representatives of the Cologne public prosecutor’s office, Essen Kripo officials and Hessian tax investigators were also involved. PwC was included in the investigation because the company audited SEB’s balance sheets. The “Handelsblatt” had previously reported on it.
confusion for the authorities
In trades, stocks with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlements were shuffled back and forth around the payout date – a confusing game designed to mislead the authorities. In the end, taxes were refunded that had not been paid at all. Such transactions, which ran mainly in the years 2006 to 2012, were at the expense of the state. Several prosecutors have been investigating for years. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office has central responsibility because the Bonn Federal Central Tax Office is in their area.
Last July, the Federal Court of Justice determined in a groundbreaking judgment that cum-ex transactions are to be assessed as tax evasion and are therefore punishable. Cum-Ex is considered the biggest tax scandal in post-war German history.
SEB is also said to have been involved in cum-ex transactions, and investigators searched the bank’s German headquarters in Frankfurt in December. The German tax authorities demanded EUR 936 million back from the institute. According to a statement in December, the bank considered this claim to be unfounded and wants to contest it.
According to SEB, it is about the business of the subsidiary DSK Hyp. The bank did not offer or carry out any transactions in Germany “to the best of its knowledge” that were aimed at getting unpaid taxes, the statement said at the time.