After the summer break, the investigative committee of the Hamburg citizenship is picking up speed.
On Friday, the tax officer Daniela P. had to answer questions from the committee members.
As a department head within the tax office for large companies, she was responsible for the private bank MM Warburg.
In autumn 2016, P. initially requested in an internal memo that the financial authorities of the Hanseatic city should reclaim 47 million euros from Warburg, which they achieved in connection with cum-ex transactions.
Shortly afterwards she refrained from doing so. Was your change of heart influenced by pressure from the then Finance Senator Peter Tschentscher, now the First Mayor of Hamburg, and his predecessor Olaf Scholz (both SPD)? When he was questioned at the end of April, Scholz had rejected these allegations. He met several times in 2016 and 2017 with the two main shareholders of the private bank, Christian Olearius and Max Warburg. There should have been no promises to the bankers.
Left-wing politician Fabio De Masi referred to the tax officer this week as the “main exonerating witness” for the SPD government at the time and the Warburg Bank. “Your story is full of contradictions,” warns the deputy group leader of the Left. P. changed her mind after a conversation with Tschentscher and reversed the Warburg Bank's burden of proof to pay the capital gains tax. Warburg settled the claims of the tax authorities in full with the 2020 annual financial statements, but continues to take action against the tax assessments before the tax courts.