According to his spokesman, Chancellor Olaf Scholz knew nothing of a possible large sum of cash in the possession of former SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs. He can rule that out, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Monday in Berlin.
At the end of next week, Scholz will again answer the questions of the investigative committee on the so-called cum-ex scandal surrounding the Hamburg Warburg Bank. “Everything that needs to be said will be dealt with there, too,” Hebestreit said.
In the tax affair, the pressure on Scholz had increased in the past few days. Opposition politicians from the Union and the Left Party demanded that he comment on the latest findings of the investigation.
According to a report in the “Bild” newspaper, a large sum of money is said to have been found in a locker belonging to the former SPD politician Johannes Kahrs as part of the Cum-Ex investigation – the possession of which is not illegal in itself. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office responsible for the investigation initially did not comment on this when asked. Kahrs has not yet been available for comment and has not responded to inquiries.
“It is not at all clear where the Kahrs got the money from and to what extent the social democratic network in Hamburg benefited from these events,” said Hamburg’s CDU leader Christoph Ploß to the “Spiegel”.
“Here, the SPD also has a duty at federal level to finally clear things up. Olaf Scholz and (Hamburg’s mayor) Peter Tschentscher have to contribute to the clarification. Both are no longer allowed to submerge,” he demanded.
Former left-wing MP Fabio De Masi wrote on Twitter: “Either Kahrs proves the origin of the money or he invokes his right to remain silent because of the Cum-Ex investigations against him.” In the latter case, De Masi concluded , it is obvious that the money is connected to the Cum-Ex case “and the Chancellor also has a problem”.
At Kahrs in Hamburg there was a raid last year in connection with the cum-ex scandal, as dpa learned from informed circles at the time. Because of the initial suspicion of favoritism against three suspects, investigators had searched not only private rooms but also the premises of the Hamburg tax authority, the Cologne public prosecutor said at the time.
Previous investigations had “given evidence of criminally relevant behavior on the part of the accused in connection with the “Cum/Ex transactions” of a Hamburg-based bank that are the subject of the proceedings”.
In cum-ex transactions, financial players shifted blocks of shares with (“cum”) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlement around the dividend date in a complicated system and then had taxes reimbursed several times. The Hamburg investigative committee is to clarify whether leading SPD politicians are influencing tax decisions at the Warburg Bank, which was involved in the scandal.
