She preferred to work "on paper", says the tax officer - "not so intensively with e-mails"

With new knowledge of the investigation results of the Cologne public prosecutor's office in the "Cum-Ex" scandal, the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee of the Hamburg Parliament continued its work on Tuesday.

She preferred to work "on paper", says the tax officer - "not so intensively with e-mails"

With new knowledge of the investigation results of the Cologne public prosecutor's office in the "Cum-Ex" scandal, the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee of the Hamburg Parliament continued its work on Tuesday. Before Hamburg's former mayor and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will testify before the committee next week, the meeting on Tuesday in the Hanseatic city's town hall was about, among other things, possibly deleted e-mails and the "diabolical plan" of a tax officer in charge of Warburg Bank.

The opposition, namely the CDU and the Left Party, wanted to suspend the committee meetings this week and the next so that they could first study documents from the Cologne public prosecutor's office. Among other things, they should show that a search in a locker of the former Hamburg SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs - against whom in connection with the "Cum-Ex" transactions of the Warburg Bank is being investigated on suspicion of favoritism - more than 200,000 euros cash were found. Furthermore, the results of the investigation from Cologne raised the suspicion that the files relating to the case were missing from the tax authorities and that e-mails had been deleted.

The Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry is investigating whether there was political influence on the tax administration's decision in 2016 to exempt Warburg Bank from paying back taxes from cum-ex transactions. At that time, the shareholder of the bank Christian Olearius met several times with the then Mayor of Hamburg Scholz and wrote a letter to the former Finance Senator and current Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD).

However, the government factions of the SPD and the Greens had rejected a postponement of the meeting. And so on Tuesday employees of the Hamburg tax authority were heard as witnesses - with a surprising twist. The former head of the tax administration stated that she could already see in 2016, when the Hamburg tax administration had not requested 47 million euros in tax refunds from the Warburg Bank, that the case would have a large impact.

"I had been in office for a long time and I knew that we would be heading for a committee of inquiry," said the 69-year-old. When asked why she assumed this at such a very early stage, she replied that even then there had been exceptionally intensive media coverage of the Warburg Bank. It went “in one direction”. "And we were going in a different direction."

But even if the tax office had decided otherwise and forced the bank to pay the 47 million euros, there would have been criticism. "We would always have had a problem," emphasized the former official. According to her statement, the bank had made it clear that she could not have made a repayment of 47 million euros at the time.

According to her own statements, the 69-year-old had no knowledge of a targeted deletion of e-mails in connection with the "Cum-Ex" scandal. The files from Cologne put the Hamburg parliamentarians on this track. "I don't know about that," she said. However, she also preferred to work “on paper” during her period of service. "I didn't work that intensively with e-mails." She did not give any instructions to delete documents or e-mails, the witness said. "But on the contrary. At some point I asked my colleagues to make sure that we kept our files clean and lengthy.”

This statement made the members of the investigative committee shake their heads. From their point of view, the files are incomplete. Time and again, MPs are surprised by new revelations in the media. This also includes messages that a tax officer entrusted with the Warburg case is said to have written.

According to the Cologne investigation, the tax officer wrote to a colleague shortly after the decision to waive the tax reclaim that her "diabolical plan" had worked. The former head of the tax administration was also asked about this on Tuesday. She couldn't explain that, she replied. "I wonder what that's supposed to mean, too," she said verbatim. "I could not perceive that anyone felt great joy in connection with this case."