Schwerin (dpa/mv) - In the gift tax dispute surrounding the Mecklenburg-Western Pomeranian Climate Foundation, employees of the responsible tax office initially saw no tax liability, according to a report in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". The clerk responsible at the Ribnitz-Damgarten tax office informed the board of the foundation that he and others in his house would share the foundation's view of the tax exemption, the paper reports in its weekend edition. It refers to an annex to the minutes of the meeting of the foundation board of April 26, 2022.
At the request of the German Press Agency, the Ministry of Finance announced on Saturday that the minutes of the foundation's board meeting express the opinion of the climate protection foundation, which assumes that the foundation will be tax-exempt - "unlike what was stated in the decision of the responsible tax office". The Ministry's press office emphasized: "The decision on the tax liability of the non-profit climate protection foundation was made in the tax office and not in the Ministry of Finance."
The climate foundation, which was founded by the state of MV in addition to climate protection and above all to protect companies from threatened US sanctions for the completion of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, is to pay 9.8 million euros in gift tax. She had received 20 million euros from the Gazprom subsidiary Nord Stream 2 AG. These went into the non-profit area of environmental protection, which is why no gift tax is due, the foundation argues. She appealed the tax assessment to the Greifswald Finance Court, but a decision has not yet been made there.
As the newspaper continues to write, according to the protocol, a final decision by the state finance ministry should not be made for the time being because of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the foundation, as the newspaper continues. The Ministry of Finance rejected this. "There is no connection between the tax assessment procedure and the parliamentary committee of inquiry," said the ministry's press office. "The parliamentary committee of inquiry does not examine the legal basis for tax assessment and is therefore of no importance for the tax office's decision on tax law." On the contrary, the competent tax office tried to speed up the processing of the tax case.
Recently it became known that an employee of the tax office had burned the foundation's tax returns in spring 2022. The head of the tax office reported this in early May 2022. However, the Ministry of Finance only informed the committee of inquiry shortly before Christmas 2022. In the new week, the finance and legal committees of the state parliament will meet to discuss the new developments. The opposition expressed the assumption that political pressure from Schwerin could have been exerted on the tax office.
