Status: 05/03/2022 12:34 p.m
The affair about tax tricks at the expense of the state treasury is expanding. Now there are also said to be searches at the German branch of the US bank Morgan Stanley.
The investigations into tax tricks with so-called cum-ex transactions have triggered another bank raid in Frankfurt. The German branch of the US bank Morgan Stanley confirmed to the Reuters news agency that there were searches. “The investigation relates to an activity from the past,” said a spokeswoman for the institute. “We continue to cooperate with the German authorities.” The Cologne public prosecutor’s office, which is in charge of the Cum-Ex complex, said on request that they had been executing search warrants against a bank in Frankfurt since the morning. A spokesman declined to name names.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, around 75 investigators from the North Rhine-Westphalian police and tax investigators from NRW and Hesse and the federal government arrived. The spokesman said the private homes of two suspects would also be searched. “The measures are related to cum-ex transactions that are the subject of the proceedings and related tax evasion models.”
Cum-ex deals cost taxpayers a lot
In cum-ex transactions, investors had the capital gains tax paid once on stock dividends reimbursed several times with the help of banks. To do this, they shifted shares with – i.e. cum – and without – ex – dividend entitlement around the deadline for the dividend payment. For taxpayers in Germany, the damage is in the billions.
A large number of banks were involved in the cum-ex deals. Only in the past few weeks have there been raids on Barclays and the investment bank Merrill Lynch, which belongs to Bank of America.