by Colman
Mon Dec 2nd, 2013 at 05:06:57 AM EST
German politician Peer Steinbrück – one of the fiercest critics of Ireland’s tax regime – used Irish letter box companies when finance minister to try to balance the German budget through financial engineering.
Mr Steinbrück – an unsuccessful candidate in the recent German election – and his Social Democratic Party (SPD) have been particularly vocal critics of Ireland’s tax laws.
He used the recent election campaign to attack failed finance market alchemy and condemn “tax oases” such as Ireland and the Netherlands.
According to this morning’s Der Spiegel magazine, Berlin began doing business in Ireland to tap into pension funds of Germany’s post office, which was privatised and broken up in 1995 into three companies for telecoms, post and post office bank. (Irish Times)
I believe the declension here is: I manage my finances prudently, you engage in tax optimisation, he is a tax cheat.
This is, of course, pretty much the same sort of financial engineering as Italy and Greece engaged in to hide bits of their deficits.
