Germany offered new set of data of alleged tax evasion via Switzerland

Germany offered new set of tax evasion data

BERLIN — An informant has offered German authorities a set of data containing details of hundreds of investors suspected of evading taxes via accounts in Switzerland — the second case in as many weeks.

A spokesman for the Finance Ministry in southwestern Baden-Wuerttemberg state, Bertram Dornheim, told the Associated Press on Friday the purchase of the “potentially very interesting” data was being examined.

Baden-Wuerttemberg Finance Minister Willi Staechele said the data contained information on about 2,000 German investors and their accounts at different Swiss banks, daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung quoted him as saying in its edition published Saturday.

Dornheim would not say how much money the informant was asking for. The person first contacted the authorities early last year and gave them more data as another case made headlines since last week.

In the first case another informant has offered authorities data reportedly documenting tax evasion of 1,500 German investors via Switzerland, asking to be paid some euro2.5 million ($3.5 million).

The purchase of presumably stolen data has stirred up a heated political debate in Germany and neighboring Switzerland, but German chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble this week endorsed the decision by the local authorities in the state of North-Rhine Westfalia to buy the data.

Schaeuble sees the recent data leaks as a final blow to the controversial Swiss banking secrecy. “This is the end,” he told daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

“In the 21st century banking secrecy may not any longer be an instrument allowing a state to facilitate tax evasion,” he is quoted as saying. Switzerland is currently going through a transition process, he predicted.

Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz, however, threatened on Wednesday that the purchase of the stolen data would damage Swiss-German relations.

The case has inflamed passions in Switzerland, which treasures its tradition of banking secrecy despite recent government decisions that have seen it watered down after pressure from the United States, France and Germany.