Olaf Scholz is in turmoil. Emails from the German Chancellor have been combed through as part of an investigation into the ‘CumEx Files’ scandal, a dividend tax fraud, the daily reports on Monday Abendblatt Burger.
Investigators examined emails in March beginning on January 1, 2015, when Olaf Scholz was mayor of Hamburg, a post he held until his appointment in 2018 as finance minister in former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.
Dozens of people charged
The CumEx scandal, a fraud first revealed in 2017, concerns an ingenious tax optimization scheme put in place by banks and allowing foreign investors to reduce their taxes on dividends. Dozens of people have been charged in the case in Germany, including bankers, traders, lawyers and financial advisers. A total of ten countries are concerned.
Among the incriminated banks was the Warburg in Hamburg, which should have reimbursed 47 million euros to the German port city, but the municipality had waived it in 2016. The investigators are trying to find out whether political leaders, and among them Olaf Scholz then mayor of the city, put pressure on the municipal tax department to stop collecting these taxes.
Scholz has “nothing to hide”
The chancellor must be questioned again, Friday in Hamburg, by a parliamentary commission on his role in this affair. His spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit, told the Abendblatt Burger that Olaf Scholz was unaware of the investigation into his e-mails and that “there is nothing else to hide”.
The decision to waive reimbursement of amounts owed by the Warburg bank was reportedly taken shortly after a conversation between then-mayor Olaf Scholz and Christian Olearius, then head of the bank, according to the German press. The German Chancellor, however, denies having pressured the tax authorities of the city of Hamburg to stop collecting these taxes.
