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Berlin recovers US$40m in taxes

A wide-ranging investigation of tax evasion by Germans stashing their money abroad has led to the recovery of more than US$40 million and netted 163 people, a prosecutor said.

Similar probes have started elsewhere in Europe and Australia.

In brief televised comments from Bochum, Germany, prosecutor Hans-Ulrich Krueck said on Tuesday that so far 91 people targeted in the investigation "have admitted to the facts" and had made payments totaling US$41.2 million.

"At the moment, that sum is rising daily," Krueck said.

He added that another 72 people had turned themselves in to tax authorities.

Krueck did not name any names or say what they did for a living -- a marked contrast with a high-profile Feb. 14 raid on the house of then-Deutsche Post chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel.

Prosecutors in the investigation -- which now has prompted probes as far afield as Australia -- say the suspects evaded taxes by putting money in foundations in the tiny tax haven of Liechtenstein.

Krueck said that the foundations checked so far had "capital of well over 200 million euros [US$296 million]."

Tax officials and prosecutors began conducting raids after the German intelligence service paid an informant as much as 5 million euros for a CD-ROM believed to contain 1,400 names of suspected tax cheats, about 600 of whom were Germans.

Liechtenstein's LGT Group says it assumes the data were sold by Heinrich Kieber, a Liechtenstein citizen who has been convicted in his home country of stealing personal information from LGT Treuhand, a unit of LGT Group.

In a statement this week, LGT said that as far as it is concerned "the data material illegally disclosed to the German authorities is limited, with almost complete certainty, to the client data stolen from LGT Treuhand in 2002."

The German Finance Ministry has said the acquisition of the disc was legal and has given no information on the informant.

In Ireland, Denis Harkin, a spokesman for that country's revenue commissioners, said they were aware of the list "and we will be in contact with German authorities to see if there are any Irish residents on the list."

Swedish tax agency chief Mats Sjostrand said Sweden and eight other countries were working with Germany to reveal tax cheats in Liechtenstein.

They include Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, Sjostrand said in an article published on Tuesday in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

"For Sweden it's about 100 Swedes with bank assets in this so-called tax paradise," he said.

Spain's Tax Agency, part of the Finance Ministry, confirmed it was analyzing information on Spanish citizens who had accounts in Liechtenstein as part of the probe that began in Germany.

Liechtenstein officials have defended the practice of allowing foreigners to open trusts there anonymously.

LGT, owned by Liechtenstein's ruling family, has denied any wrongdoing.

French tax authorities were also looking into information on possible tax dodgers with bank accounts in Liechtenstein, the Budget Ministry said on Tuesday, while Australian and New Zealand authorities yesterday mounted raids on residents suspected of dodging tax through Liechtenstein.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the world's leading anti-corruption watchdog, is spearheading the effort to force tax havens to be more transparent.

The US has told the OECD that tax evasion costs it up to US$100 billion a year, while Sweden has said it costs them US$7.5 billion.
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