Postal chief resigns as massive €4bn tax scandal unfolds

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Postal chief resigns as massive €4bn tax haven scandal unfolds in Germany

http://www.independent.ie/business/euro ... 90817.html

By Tony Paterson in Berlin
Saturday February 16 2008

Deutsche Post's chief executive, Klaus Zumwinkel, was forced to resign yesterday amid a potentially devastating tax evasion scandal in which hundreds of wealthy Germans were suspected of illegally transferring up to €4bn into secret bank accounts in Leichtenstein.

Mr Zumwinkel (64), who had led the partially state-run corporation for 18 years, was obliged to step down after state prosecutors announced that they suspected him of dodging some €1m in taxes over 20 years.

The German government, which owns 31pc of Deutsche Post, said in a statement yesterday that it "saluted" Mr Zumwinkel's decision to quit adding, unusually, that it believed that he himself considered the tax fraud allegations to be true.

"We have the impression that Mr Zumwinkel thinks that they are," said Torstren Albig, a German finance ministry spokesman. He appealed to others implicated in the fraud investigation to turn themselves in.

His resignation followed raids by tax fraud investigators on Zumwinkel's Cologne villa and Deutsche Post's headquarters in Bonn. He was subsequently taken by police escort to the offices of state prosecutors leading the tax probe. Police removed several boxes of documents from his home.

Mr Zumwinkel, who was regarded as a pillar of the German business establishment, is suspected of illegally depositing funds in foundations in the tax haven of Leichtenstein since the early 1990s.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, described his departure as "unavoidable".

Peer Steibruck, the German finance minister, said the tax fraud investigation had already caused "considerable moral damage''. German media reports said yesterday the raid on Mr Zumwinkel's home was part of a series of probes into a tax evasion racket involving a figure that ranged between €300m and €4bn that had been illegally deposited in accounts in Leichtenstein, the principality bordering Switzerland and Austria.

Identities

A confiscated CD was said to have revealed the identities of hundreds of other wealthy Germans suspected of illegally depositing sums in the Leichtenstein bank, LGT. "We've cracked the whole bank," one investigator said yesterday.

Further raids by investigators are expected across Germany over the weekend and on Monday. They said some 1,000 individuals were suspected of being involved. Mr Zumwinkel was sharply criticised late last year after he sold 200,000 share options worth €2.24m immediately after Deutsche Post's introduced a minimum wage for postal workers which caused share prices to rise sharply.

The move effectively protected Deutsche Post from lower-cost competition. Public reaction to Mr Zumwinkel's resignation and growing evidence of a major tax fraud was one of shock yesterday.

Peter Struck, parliamentary leader of Germany's governing Social Democrats, said: "When someone has so much money and nevertheless believes there is a need to hide cash, then the public will believe there is a lack of justice."

Mrs Merkel is expected to discuss the issue with bank executives when she visits Leichtenstein next week. (©London Independent)

[jemima]

"The public will believe there is a lack of justice", maybe.

A lack of social responsibility, too. It's not nice that someone who had so much money, and wanted for nothing, would seek to impoverish his country by avoiding the just tax payments claimed by a democratically-elected government.

[Stormproof]

When I read that headline I was hoping it was one of these two :lfo :cfo

[norbert]

When I read that headline I was hoping it was one of these two :lfo :cfo

they've just got better lawyers

[k979aaa]

When I read that headline I was hoping it was one of these two :lfo :cfo

they've just got better lawyers

Nope they just cannot find them being so far up each other's ar*eholes!.

[F0zziebear]

If it's true then deserves everything that's coming to him. He passed minimum wage rules for the large german postal force, yet because he earns more money (admittedly for running a £35bn organisation) he thinks he can afford clever accountants to help him dodge his fair share of tax.

AS most know in here I am not a left-wing Tony Benn loving hippy, but hate to see people not contributing their fair share to society.

If Leighton & Crozier or anyone else has done similar then they also deserve what's coming to them. It's greed, it's illegal, and just because it might be white collar crime, it should carry stiff penalties not be seen as a harmless victimless crime.

F0zz

[k979aaa]

Money is the root of evil.

[Night Tonic]

No it sn't - man is

[k979aaa]

No it sn't - man is

Delete it quick dont let the misus see that all were all done for!.