Carsten Maschmeyer, the founder of AWD financial advisory company, is pointing to Switzerland when asked about the guilty party in regard to his tax dealings.
The financier, who founded AWD in 1988, has been called to testify in the German Bundestag, explaining sensitive tax deals. Carsten Maschmeyer, who has also held a seat on the board of Swiss Life, now says he never knowingly was involved in tax avoidance deals involving dividend stripping.
Maschmeyer in an interview with Germany’s «Focus» magazine (print edition) points an accusing finger at J. Safra Sarasin, the Swiss private bank. He says he personally considered such deals «immoral» and claimed that the bank probably had misappropriated funds to invest in such dealings, against the agreement signed.
German Bundestag Investigation
The fund had been presented as a pure dividend fund with no short selling involved, Maschmeyer said according to «Focus», adding that this had been confirmed in writing to his tax adviser.
Dividend stripping deals are estimated to cause a tax shortfall of 12 billion euros and a German Bundestag commission is poised to investigate the transactions. Maschmeyer has been called to witness on Thursday, as a victim and witness, he claims.
Exploiting Tax Loophole
Maschmeyer and Erwin Mueller, the owner of a German drug-store-chain, sued J. Safra Sarasin in 2014 after they had lost substantial amounts of money with financial deals.
Maschmeyer had 40 million euros invested in J. Safra Sarasin funds, which exploited a tax loophole. When the tax authorities closed the loophole, the fund became obsolete and thus the yield fell away.
Settlement in 2015
When the German attorney general got involved in the case, offices of J. Safra Sarasin in Switzerland and Germany were raided. Maschmeyer and the bank in 2015 negotiated a deal to settle their dispute.
