Germany Rakes in EUR 1 B, No Recanting Tax Dodgers in Bulgaria

A file photo shows the exterior view of the building of the HSBC Bank at the quai Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo by EPA/BGNES

While Bulgarian tax authorities are getting nowhere with their plans to look into the Swiss bank accounts of Bulgarians whom they suspect of tax evasion, Germany has raked in one billion euros from tax dodgers.

"Due to voluntary reports of tax evasion, the payment of tax arrears is estimated at more than one billion euros,” the German tax union chief Dieter Ondracek told mass-circulation Bild.

About 11,200 tax cheats reported to tax authorities after Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia state bought the Swiss CD with the names of more than 1,500 fraudsters for 2.5 million euros in February, said Ondracek.

The identity of the seller has never been revealed.

Financial experts in Bulgaria have commented that the country's tax authorities will find it difficult to bring to justice those tax evaders, who hold about EUR 200 M in Swiss banks as revealed by the stolen disk of Swiss banking data bought by Germany.

It is still not clear whether Bulgaria has already received the information in question and whether it was going to pay for it.

In contrast to Germany, there have been no cases of recanting tax dodgers ready and willing to pay their taxes in Bulgaria yet.

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