The Tax Game

We are back to the next round of the tax game. Some guy now says that he's got evidence over 250 German companies....who have dealt mostly in communications or real estate in Switzerland, and deposited their profits in Swiss banks....quietly. He is suggesting missed tax income of roughly 800 million Euro (a billion dollars).

So far, the German government is moving slowly. This guy wants to be paid for his information and no one is confident yet over his information.

For the real estate guys....I'm taking a bold guess on this but they are likely middle-guys on deals and helped to sell a German-owed property in Switzerland to another German. They pocket their money and simply deposit it in the nearest Swiss bank. As far as they are concerned...it's not German-taxed. It's an illegal episode but across all of Europe...you've got various folks concluding deals in private and simply exchanging money. Official documents are likely worked via the local county court house and a guy is paid some money to just stamp the document complete.

The communications companies? This is a more difficult situation and I can only imagine someone trying to put up a network in a building and hiring a German company to drive down and set this up. Cash is exchanged and then deposited.

The German tax guys are getting smarter each and every year. They now grasp the thousands of ways that folks avoid paying their taxes. The tide is turning on these characters and they absolutely have to depend on the Swiss banks keeping their mouth shut. For this character to come out and say he's got the information to nail them....it means that the Swiss system is no longer secure.

My guess is that these events are simply pushing the rich German guys to move further away from Europe and find more isolated parts of the world to hide their cash and profits. Someday, there'll be this announcement of a major German millionaire community being built in Libya and we'll all have a laugh over how stupid this is. Then we'll eventually come to realize that this was brilliant in terms of being able to hide your profits.