Germans Hide Cash in Diapers as Swiss Secrecy Crumbles
Germans who avoided taxes by keeping money in Switzerland are bringing wads of cash home and hiding it in odd places.
With Swiss banks the target of an international crackdown against tax evasion, the government wants the industry to stop managing undeclared funds. This requirement, combined with high-profile cases such as Bayern Munich President Uli Hoeness, who is charged with using a Swiss account to evade paying taxes, and the purchase of client data by German officials, has frightened tax cheats into action, according to customs agents.
Enlarge image Swiss-German Border
“We had a 72-year-old man wearing a woman’s corset with 150,000 euros stuffed inside,” said Markus Ueckert, a spokesman for the German customs district of Loerrach, one of the three that border Switzerland. “In another instance, a man had on two incontinence diapers with nearly 140,000 euros in between.”
Non-resident Germans and Britons may have held 164 billion francs ($175 billion) of undeclared funds in 2010, according to an estimate by Booz & Co. Since then, more than 36,000 requests for tax amnesty were filed in Germany. Those who don’t want to come clean are prepared to violate the law that requires cash of more than 10,000 euros ($13,200) to be declared at the border.
More at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-03/germans-hide-cash-in-diapers-as-swiss-secrecy-crumbles.html .