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Germany

Exclusive: Massive German Tax Evasion Probe, Billions Stashed In Swiss Banks

One estimate is that some 150 billion euros have been stashed in secret Swiss accounts.

More dark days ahead?
More dark days ahead?
Hans Leyendecker and Claus Hulverscheidt

BOCHUM – The German prosecutor’s office in the western city of Bochum announced it had uncovered proof of massive tax evasion, with billions of undeclared euros deposited by German investors in Swiss bank accounts.

The prosecutor in the state of North Rhine Westphalia analyzed the contents of a CD with data from German clients, including 750 foundations and 550 individuals. The data showed secret accounts with Swiss banking giant UBS totaling 2.9 billion euros. The foundations alone are alleged to have evaded 204 million euros in German taxes.

Since 2007, the western state of North Rhine Westphalia has been buying CDs containing information about alleged tax evaders. The practice by the state’s Social Democratic Party (SPD)-led government has met with criticism from Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who believes it adversely affects the chances of getting a global German/Swiss tax agreement signed.

Meanwhile, the SPD and Greens believe the draft agreement Schäuble has negotiated with the Swiss is too lax and are blocking its passage in federal parliament.

There are no official estimates of how much “black” money Germans have in Swiss accounts, though this latest probe, one of the largest to date, offers further signs that the amounts may be enormous. Thomas Eigenthaler, the head of the Deutsche Steuergewerkschaft (a trade union of workers in the finance and taxation sectors) told Süddeutsche Zeitung he believed the total amount was somewhere around 150 billion euros.

According to the prosecutor’s office, only 135 of the 1,300 accounts named on the UBS CD had voluntarily disclosed their Swiss account to German tax authorities as they have the option to do.

The UBS CD is said to have cost 3.5 million euros. Unlike earlier CDs acquired by the state of North Rhine Westphalia, it offers little indication of active cooperation by bank employees to help account-holders evade taxes.

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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