Hamburg – The focus will be on the machinations of the formerly state-owned HSH Nordbank, now known as the Hamburg Commercial Bank. Scholz was formerly the governing mayor of Hamburg.
In the cum-ex fraud scheme, financial investors shifted stock shares back and forth around dividend payments dates in order to aggressively exploit an apparent loophole in tax law.
Germany was particularly badly hit in the scandal, although other countries were also impacted by the scheme.
By swapping shares with (“cum” in Latin) and without (“ex”) dividend entitlements back and forth, players in the scheme were able to receive tax refunds from the German government – despite having never paid the taxes in the first place.
Originally, the committee had only investigated a possible political influence on the tax case of the Hamburg-based Warburg Bank, which was involved in the scandal. At the urging of the opposition, it was expanded at the end of 2022 to include further cum-ex cases.
Between 2008 and 2011, the then state bank of Hamburg and the neighbouring state of Schleswig-Holstein had 29 cases in which it had capital gains tax refunded that had not been paid at all.
Chancellor Scholz has already appeared before the committee as a witness twice. In doing so, he repeatedly stated that he could not recall the transactions of Warburg Bank, but that he could rule out political influence.
