Tax evasion: Schäuble, tightened control of letter-box companies – FAZ – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s letter-box companies control more stringent.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wants to approach a newspaper report that to strengthen the fight against letter box companies. The proposed law to combat tax evasion provides for much more stringent reporting requirements for taxpayers and banks, reported the “Handelsblatt,” citing the bill. Are planned accordingly, higher penalties, and financial institutions should be able to be taken for tax losses in the liability. The law should be adopted according to the paper, in December, by the Cabinet.

in the Future, must disclose according to the report, the German taxpayer is any business relationship, a letter box company in the abroad – regardless of whether they are involved in the organization or not. So to not be veiled, who keep in a letter-box company’s assets.

To find out the beneficiaries, should be repealed in the “fiscal Bank secrecy” part. Banks, brokered for a customer business to letter-box companies, it must, under certain conditions. In the event of a breach of this duty to cooperate with the financial institutions for loss of tax revenue would have to adhere to, it is called the leaf, according to the 37-page draft.

“tax fraud case is over-exploitation of the public at large, and unacceptable,” said financial Secretary Michael Meister of the “Handelsblatt”. The key to the solution of the problem as greater transparency. “The intricate legal structures need to be lit up in the last corner.”

cases in which the tax authorities through letter-box companies will be cheated, to be included in the “catalogue of very serious tax evasion”. Thus, the limitation period is increased to ten years. The period within which taxes later, in some cases even 20 years or more.

at the end of April, had submitted Schäuble, after the publication of the so-called Panama Papers, a catalogue of measures for combating tax havens. Through the evaluation of eleven million documents a world-wide journalists had revealed the network, such as the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, dozens of top politicians, sports stars and other Celebrities helped to evade taxes. The revelations caused worldwide tax inspectors on the Plan.