Former Deutsche Post chief executive convicted of tax evasion
Former Deutsche Post chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel, whose arrest last February signalled the start of Germany's biggest ever tax investigation, was convicted by a German court on 26 January.
A court in Bochum handed down a two-year suspended sentence and fined Zumwinkel, the most prominent German taxpayer to be caught up in the tax scandal involving Liechtenstein, EUR1 million.
The prosecutor requested a mild sentence because Zumwinkel has paid EUR3.9 million in back taxes and pleaded guilty at the start of his trial. Under German law, tax evasion can carry a sentence of up to 10 years.
The German government paid an informant EUR4.2 million for a CD containing bank data from LGT Group, the biggest bank in the Alpine tax haven of Liechtenstein. It also said the BND, Germany's intelligence service, had been involved.
LGT, owned by the principality's ruling family, admitted that the data comprised bank information on 1,400 clients. It had been stolen by a former employee, who worked at the bank between April 2001 and November 2001, who had "abused his position of trust to compile information about clients".
Since the investigation began in February 2008, German prosecutors have recovered over EUR150 million from German taxpayers seeking to avoid a trial. German authorities claim that up to EUR4 billion was hidden in Liechtenstein.
The highest proportion of clients, about 600, were resident in Germany but information had also been sold to the tax authorities of the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and France. The German government said that it was willing to share relevant data on non-German individuals or entities with other governments. Tax authorities in Ireland, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Spain all indicated their interest.
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