Suspected tax evaders on the Internet – why the Switzerland unmasked … – Süddeutsche.de

• The Swiss government has published on its website suspected tax evaders. Until now, Switzerland has been very discreet when it came to secret bank notes.
• Probably the Swiss authorities act formally correct on this issue. It is a kind of “public service”.
• A Bismarck descendant is so far the only halfway prominent case.

Bastian Obermayer

You can find the suspected tax evaders with just a few clicks, your data can be called up at any time and to anyone on the Internet. And amazingly, on the Inter side of the Swiss government. The Swiss Sonntagszeitung had reported it, and the news quickly spread.

There are several hundred names, some from India, some from France, Russia and Sweden, many of them but also from Germany. One of them is a descendant of the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and thus probably the most prominent case to date.

Ironically, Switzerland. The fate hardly any other country is so closely linked to bank secrecy as Switzerland. Hardly any other country is as discreet and secretive until now, when it comes to secret bank accounts. Now published this Switzerland, the names of suspected tax evaders – it is so readily so pilloried

Well, the idea was actually another?. In fact, Switzerland wants to help in their somewhat unwieldy “releases the Federal Tax Administration” mentioned gazettes actually: The country informed as possible tax evaders, who could not be contacted – perhaps because the Swiss authorities no address is known – about the fact that a foreign authority a request for assistance has provided. Is the Official Journal, the or the data subject has ten days to report back with its address – and to appeal

The people made public with tax problems are not sentenced

But how. is an interested party to know about it? Hardly anyone expected regularly the website of the Swiss authorities scour on whether one’s name is mentioned anywhere. As unknown, this practice is, easy to read because the method according to SZ -Recherchen actually running since at least early 2012. Without media reaction. And it would probably have stayed longer undetected, would not be an editor of the Sunday Gazette came across it.

But if the concern reversed. Alexandre Dumas of the Federal Tax Administration, which was not available for the SZ on Monday called it in an interview with Sunday Gazette “special” that his agency makes the names of possible tax evaders publicly. But “especially” is not quite true. More likely, one could perhaps call this approach completely absurd

Switzerland is just not any country, in Switzerland, the aftershocks of the “Swiss-Leaks” is still to be felt. A research team of more than 100 journalists including Reporter of the Guardian , from Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung , had together with the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) stolen customer data the Swiss HSBC evaluated and reported on a large scale and for days. . A disaster for Switzerland

The country has been repeatedly pointed out that the HSBC whistleblower Hervé Falciani is nothing more than a thief and that the privacy of bank customers had been unlawfully injured – more so if this date have not been convicted. The same argument has been tried, as the ICIJ has published the names of thousands of people two years ago, who owned shell companies in tax havens. The criticism of it was nowhere as severe as in Switzerland.

The analysis of these data will be no stopping

The people made public by the Swiss government with control problems are not convicted , And if Switzerland foreign offices provides assistance in tax matters, rarely missing the addition that the documents obtained should be secret

One thing is certain. The public evaluation of these data will be unstoppable. While the Bismarck-descendant is so far the only halfway prominent case, but who knows what names slumber in the archives of the Swiss Federal Tax Administration still

Interesting the way. Not all names are fully known. Excluded are obviously American citizens about a certain RAR, born on 5 April 1943 the Swiss authorities informed about the request for assistance of the US tax investigation. And perhaps this information has also reached the man. However, he would have searched for the website of the Swiss tax authorities after his code

Probably act the Swiss authorities in this matter formally correct -. In the local official German one knows similar operations as a “public service”. In fact, no one can the responsible officials seriously believe that in this way supposedly informed people would actually reach this information also. But such discrete information be disclosed that the formalistic act, moreover, all over the world, which is extremely amazing for Swiss standards.

Swiss leaks The black money is not gone – just somewhere

confess Swiss banks to have previously turned bad things. Meanwhile, however, that everything is totally fine, they say. Is that correct? Comment