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Hamburg's First Mayor Peter Tschentscher could feel in these days how close success and failure are among politicians.
At least the "Manager Magazin" tries to scratch the positive image of the social democrat with the latest research on cum-ex deals.
According to this, Tschentscher is said to be more deeply involved than previously known in the affair surrounding the traditional private bank Warburg.
The 55-year-old, who has been mayor of the Hanseatic city since 2018, was just named Germany's most popular prime minister in a Forsa survey for RTL / ntv - just ahead of Schleswig-Holstein's Daniel Günther (CDU) and Bavaria's Markus Söder (CSU).
To explain: In the so-called cum-ex deals, investors once used a loophole in the law to cheat the state for money for years.
Around the dividend cut-off date, several participants pushed shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlements back and forth.
As a result, tax authorities reimbursed capital gains taxes that had not been paid.
The state suffered billions in damage.
In 2012 the tax loophole was closed.
Did Scholz and Tschentscher exert political influence?
In Hamburg, a parliamentary committee of inquiry (PUA) would like to clarify whether Mayor Tschentscher and his party friend, Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, have exerted political influence.
The background to the allegations are Scholz's contacts with Warburg co-owner Christian Olearius.
This is said to have tried to avert reclaims against the bank totaling 90 million euros.
Shortly after a phone call between Olearius and Scholz, the city's tax office dropped a demand for a return of 47 million euros.
At the time, there were investigative proceedings against Warburg Bank and Olearius on suspicion of serious tax evasion.
At that time, Scholz was Hamburg's First Mayor, Tschentscher his Senator for Finance.
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As reported by “Manager Magazin”, Bankier wrote
Olearius wrote a letter on November 9, 2016 - addressed to Tschentscher, the Senator for Finance at the time.
Because of the importance of the process, so Olearius to Tschentscher, he took the liberty of sending a copy of a letter that he had recently sent to the tax officer who was responsible for his bank.
In it, according to "Manager Magazin", Olearius argued on seven pages that his bank had always obeyed the law.
And that the tax office should consider that a multi-million dollar repayment could endanger the existence of the bank.
Olearius ended his letter to the senator and thus to the tax clerk's employer with the sentence that an early decision would be in the interests of the bank.
"Request for information on the status quo"
According to the report, Tschentscher noted the words "Request for information on the state of affairs" "in the upper right corner of the letter" from Olearius and put his initials after it.
On November 15, the letter arrived at the tax department reporting to him.
When Olearius' defense document was finally attached to the files, it is said to have been provided with additional markings.
Among other things, a passage was underlined in which it was about the alleged "threat to the existence" of the bank.
Whether Tschentscher also made these comments cannot be clearly established.
According to the "Manager Magazin", Tschentscher did not comment on the markings or other specific questions with reference to tax secrecy.
The current mayor, as the Senator for Finance, never took part in the processing of tax cases, explained the Senate Chancellery in general, but was informed about the administrative procedures in important cases.
Both the former First Mayor Scholz and his successor Tschentscher had repeatedly rejected any influence on decisions of the tax office in the tax case.
Warburg wants to have paid all tax claims
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The Warburg Bank announced in January that it had paid all tax claims.
After the group had already paid around 44 million euros to the tax office for large companies in Hamburg in April 2020, another 111 million euros had now been transferred at the end of 2020.
The money was made available by the two main shareholders of the Warburg Group.
From mid-March, the Hamburg citizenship will go on a search for the truth in the parliamentary investigation committee.
The left-wing MP Norbert Hackbusch already announced: "Now not only the files from the tax office, but also from the tax authorities and the Senate Chancellery must be submitted to the parliamentary committee of inquiry".
The committee would like to summon Scholz and Tschentscher as witnesses before the federal election.
Tschentscher before Günther and Söder
Hamburg's mayor still has a lot of popular support. Because according to a Forsa survey published on Wednesday on behalf of the broadcasters RTL and ntv, 75 percent of the Hanseatic population are satisfied with Tschentscher's work, 19 percent express dissatisfaction. Just behind him are Daniel Günther, Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein (74 percent satisfaction) and Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (72 percent). In February Forsa asked almost 8,000 German citizens whether they were satisfied with the work of their prime ministers.