Hundreds of billions of euros are lost to the German tax authorities every year through tax evasion and undeclared work. It is by no means only large companies or people with very high incomes who sometimes evade taxes. Wherever sales are high, the temptation to withhold money from the state sometimes seems great – this is also the case with the former owner of a pizza delivery service in Milbersthofen, whose income has skyrocketed after positive criticism in a Munich tabloid newspaper.
The 42-year-old, who now has to answer before the Munich I Regional Court, is said to have evaded around 570,000 euros in income, trade, sales and wage tax between 2011 and 2013. In addition, between 2011 and 2015 he is said not to have made any contributions to health, nursing care or pension insurance for his employees. All in all, according to the indictment of the public prosecutor’s office, it is a total of around 923,000 euros.
At the start of the trial before the 6th Criminal Chamber, the former owner of the pizza delivery service largely denied the prosecutor’s allegations. After he leased the business in 2011, sales were extremely low, the defendant claimed. He had “started with nothing” and even distributed advertising flyers in the neighborhood himself. It was not until 2014 that his company was in the black – after positive criticism in the tz. Just one day after the article appeared, the number of orders in his pizzeria had tripled. However, when an employee tipped off the customs authorities after a dispute with the accused, the deal was shattered. At the end of 2015, the 42-year-old gave up the pizza delivery service and the tax authorities were investigating him.
The sum of the amounts that he is said to have evaded were not correct, the accused claimed during his interrogation at the start of the trial. Starting in 2014, when business was going very well, the tax office estimated the income and sales for the previous years. But at that time he was not doing well financially, said the 42-year-old. In those years he “had almost nothing.” Incidentally, his former business partner was responsible for the recruitment and wage payments and not him. “And today I’m sitting there and have to pay for everything,” complained the former owner of the pizza delivery service.