Informant offers to sell Swiss bank data
An informant has offered to sell German authorities the data on 1,500 possible tax evaders with bank accounts in Switzerland, a newspaper has reported.
Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Friday said the informant had demanded €2.5 million (SFr3.68 million) for the data and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was evaluating whether to agree to the deal.
The informant gave tax auditors the data of five of the 1,500 cases to prove the validity of the information and an investigation found that in each of the cases, a back duty of €1 million would be due, the newspaper said.
The German finance ministry has not commented on the newspaper report.
In 2008, the German Federal Intelligence Service paid an informant as much as €5 million for a list with the names of account holders from a Liechtenstein bank.
The Swiss finance ministry said it had taken note of the report but declined to comment further.
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