The case is so sensitive that Manuela Schwesig does what you have to do in such a case. “The incident must be fully clarified,” demanded Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister on Thursday on Deutschlandfunk. It is about a burned tax return in connection with the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline. However, the Ministry of Justice of your state government was informed about this by the senior public prosecutor in Stralsund on May 5, 2022 – which raises the question of why Schwesig allegedly only found out about it now want.
The SPD politician fought for Nord Stream 2 for years until Vladimir Putin sealed the end of the project with his actions in Ukraine. A year later, Schwesig’s state government is catching up with its past. In this case, it is about the MV Climate and Environmental Protection Foundation, which was set up specifically for the completion of the billion-euro project. The official goal was to promote climate protection, but the pipeline should be completed by the economic part of the foundation despite US sanctions.
For this purpose, a special ship called Blue Ship bought. Shortly after the beginning of the war, Schwesig announced the dissolution of the foundation, but this has not happened to this day. The board of directors is still her predecessor Erwin Sellering (SPD), who only wants to give way when all outstanding legal issues have been clarified. One of them is the question of whether a gift tax should have been paid for the endowment capital of 20 million euros made available by the Russian Gazprom group. This has not yet been finally clarified. The important question here is what exactly was in the tax returns submitted.
The tax officer’s mother apparently did not know
This is exactly what leads to the case that has now become public, which also concerns the investigative committee set up in Schwerin to investigate the climate protection foundation. The Süddeutsche Zeitung the documents are available. It is about a process from May 2022. The Ribnitz-Damgarten tax office was responsible for the tax matters of the foundation. A tax officer burned an original tax return from the foundation in her mother’s fireplace. First of all, her supervisor asked all employees to confirm in writing that they did not have the tax return in question.
The woman also submitted the declaration, but then found, according to the documents, that she had accidentally filed the tax return in a completely different tax process. Since she wanted to cover up her previous, and therefore false, statement to her superior, she panicked and burned the foundation’s tax return in the fireplace, allegedly without her mother’s knowledge. However, she later revealed this to her superior, who then filed a criminal complaint.
The accused emphasized that the tax office had taken the view in the documents that “the donations made to the foundation were not taxable”. The public prosecutor’s office in Stralsund initiated an investigation into breach of custody. However, according to the documents, there is probably still a copy of the tax return at the Rostock tax office. Three gift tax returns from the Climate Foundation were submitted there. Due to lack of jurisdiction, the originals went to the Ribnitz-Damgarten tax office, but copies were made in at least two cases.
The public prosecutor’s office in Stralsund has now closed the proceedings against the tax officer against payment of a monetary requirement. “According to the investigations carried out, the tax audit was ultimately not affected by the destruction of the original documents. In addition, the destruction of the documents would not have become known if the accused had not disclosed them,” emphasizes Senior Public Prosecutor Marc Engelhardt.
The Greens speak of a “political earthquake”
The parliamentary group leader of the Greens, Harald Terpe, says that we are facing a “political earthquake” because the state government has been aware of the whole case since May 2022. The case was also not mentioned when his group asked questions about the tax documents.
The chairman of the CDU parliamentary group, Franz-Robert Liskow, focuses primarily on Finance Minister Heiko Geue (SPD): The fact that Geue is trying to downplay the destruction of tax documents as an act of a lower-ranking official is “simply outrageous”. Someone must take political responsibility for such a process. Liskow doubts that the ministry did not put pressure on the tax office to destroy the documents. “If it were really as Mr. Geue claims, then the employee would not have burned the documents in panic instead of simply admitting her mistake.”
The fact that Minister of Justice Jacqueline Bernhardt (left) had not informed the legal committee months ago is proof that Schwesig’s state government is blatantly lacking in the will to clarify. “Ms. Schwesig must be questioned about the process by the investigative committee,” emphasizes Liskow.
He also demands that the foundation must finally be dissolved and that Sellering should no longer stand in the way. “Schwesig could have dismissed Sellering long ago, why she didn’t do it remains her secret.” Schwesig is obviously afraid to take action against Sellering because of his knowledge. “It’s a shame that the foundation is still operating a year after the start of the war.”