Tax fraud and the SPD don’t really go together – the Social Democrats have always taken a clear position on cum-ex deals in recent years. The crime worked like this: Financial actors moved blocks of shares with (Latin “cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement around the dividend record date in a complex system. The motive for the crime: only pay capital gains tax once, but have the tax authorities reimburse you with multiple taxes. Checkout with the state.
A committee of inquiry in Hamburg is to clarify a tax exemption for the Warburg Bank in connection with cum-ex transactions, granted in 2016 under Olaf Scholz as mayor. It is being examined why the responsible authority at that time let a tax reclaim against the bank in the amount of 47 million euros lapse idly. And, more importantly, whether there was any political influence on this decision. In view of the investigations, the SPD has become strangely quiet on the subject of cum-ex.
Leading social democrats used to vehemently condemned such illegal transactions. They make the great silence on the case in Hamburg, which now prevails, seem all the more booming.
The former SPD federal vice Ralf Stegner made Cum-Ex a topic on Twitter several times – when it came to political competition. The party left Stegner primarily attacked Friedrich Merz, when he had just declared his candidacy for the CDU party chairmanship.
“Investigations into ‘Black Rock’ for ‘Cum Ex Deals’. Tax avoidance or tax evasion on a large scale? Stories from Vormerz from 2018” or “About a millionaire from the financial industry who set out to teach the Union to fear and become chancellor,” Stegner tweeted on November 7, 2018.
The social democrat also attacked the FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki. “FDP man Kubicki defends ’tax havens’, letterbox companies and shabby cum-ex deals,” read a tweet on November 15, 2017. Just six days earlier, Stegner had teased in another tweet: “Federal Finance Minister Kubicki would be ‘real satire’, says Peer Steinbrück about the FDP man who considers ‘cum-ex’ transactions to be legal and wants to legalize criminal online gambling businesses (Paradise Papers). .”
North Rhine-Westphalia’s former finance minister, Norbert Walter-Borjans (SPD), was particularly persistent in denouncing the cum-ex deals. In an interview published on September 5, 2019, he emphasized: “Cum-Ex is nothing more than the brazen grab into the public purse, pointing out that others are to blame for leaving it open.” When bank customers pay taxes multiple times reimbursed, which were only paid once, “they have to know that they are taking the money out of the pockets of all tax-honest citizens,” says Walter-Borjans.
When asked about a Cum Ex trial before the regional court in Bonn, he described it as an important signal – namely “on the dimension, but also on the determination of the judiciary to take action against greedy lawbreakers. And that it doesn’t get stuck somewhere in the thicket of delays and the statute of limitations.” According to Walter-Borjans, “that would be a disservice to a constitutional state that depends on the trust of the citizens”. In December 2019 he became SPD federal chairman.
And Olaf Scholz himself, whose role in the Hamburg Cum-Ex case is being investigated? Supposedly always found such deals worthy of criticism. However, little evidence can be found that he took a public stand. And they fall during his time as Federal Minister of Finance (2018-2021).
This includes his appearance at a panel discussion on December 9, 2019. The event of the anti-corruption association “Transparency Germany” took place under the title “Cum-Ex: The organized grip on the state coffers – what are the consequences?” in the state representation Lower Saxony in Berlin.
Excerpts of Scholz’s speech were broadcast on the ARD program “Panorama” on February 13, 2020. Today’s Chancellor said: “Cum-Ex was a huge mess. I have no idea how anyone could consider this legal or even legitimate in any way. Not only was that cheeky and bold, it was also, I think, despicable.”
This wording largely corresponds to Scholz’s speech manuscript, which can be found on the website of the federal SPD. Scholz also posted pictures of the event on his Facebook account and only slightly modified the quote there: “I think so
The Finance Minister at the time, Scholz, made his first statement about the cum-ex deals almost a year before his appearance at the Lower Saxony representation in Berlin. In his tweet of November 5, 2018, Scholz writes: “The cum-ex deals were a real scandal. The state and thus all honest citizens have been deprived of billions of euros. Such machinations make angry.” In order to fight them, however, “legal precautions have been taken in Germany for some time”.
It’s easy to judge harshly about others who have been caught cum-ex. Next Friday, Olaf Scholz is to testify before the investigative committee of the Hamburg Parliament on his own behalf – including his meetings with the representatives of the distressed bank in 2016 and 2017.
The committee has not yet completed its investigations, but for Scholz the result seems to be clear in advance – namely that there was no political interference. “I am sure that this knowledge will not be changed, after two and a half years that is very clear,” said Scholz recently at the federal press conference in Berlin. Why then his meetings with the shareholders of the bank? The Chancellor refers to gaps in memory.
And so it has become quiet about plain text statements from the SPD. After Kubicki and Merz were tackled so hard, are there critical voices about Scholz or demands to clarify everything? No, nothing has been heard publicly from the leading social democrats, it seems like double standards.
Olaf Scholz ruled together with the Union in the federal government for a long time, was Vice Chancellor alongside Angela Merkel. But his handling of the Hamburg Cum-Ex case is now causing harsh criticism from the ranks of the former coalition partner.
Matthias Hauer, chairman of the Union faction in the Bundestag Finance Committee, said WELT: “Scholz consistently avoids questions from journalists and politicians, although the Warburg scandal extends to his former office. The fact that he claims memory gaps and only wants to remember exactly the circumstances that have become known elsewhere is completely unbelievable.”
Because the public prosecutor’s office in Cologne is investigating the suspicion that Scholz’s professional mailbox may have been deleted, Hauer demands that all of his correspondence be examined. That’s why it’s now necessary “to search his private e-mail inboxes and those of the SPD.” Clear words, but Hauer ultimately also belongs to the opposition. It’s easier to criticize.