Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

cumex-files.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 112 posts

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#51

Post by caf »

kartan wrote: post #26
flexie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Danish tax payers have lost around EUR 1.7B. That's around EUR 300 for every Dane. Still a lot, but a lot less than they claim. I have two takes on this: 1: The Danish tax authorities have been extremely careless in the administration of the rules. They didn't even check that the people owned the shares they claimed to own. Virtually all of it was approved by one employee with zero oversight. 2: Different internation…

> They didn't even check that the people owned the shares they claimed to own Yes. But people hates bureaucracy. A common answer is'why do I need to present another document in the tax office?' At least now Danish citizens have an answer. 'to avoid losing 1.7B' bureaucracy is a remedy to a problem. It can be done right or wrong, but it's not bad by itself.

They should have the companies themselves submit their share register as of the in-dividend date to the tax authority (which the company has to know anyway, since you can be damn sure that they're not paying dividends to people who didn't own the shares!). No register no refunds.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#52

Post by raffael-vogler »

correctiv.org is producing phantastic investigative journalism on a regular basis. one of their most important revelations recently was about a pharmacist who was selling heavily diluted cytostatic agents for chemo therapy. several people died because of this [1].

really awesome about correctiv is that they not just release their findings - they really make sure that something is going to be done about it. for example the government didn't do much about above mentioned case - they didn't even bother to inform the patients. so correctiv rented a shop in that town (Bottrop) where people could inform themselves about the matter.

if you want to support them: https://correctiv.org/ueber-uns/#unterstuetzen-sie-unabhaeng....

the one thing I find most concerning about these kind of revelations is that it seems that journalism is more and more responsible for work police should be doing.

[1]: https://correctiv.org/ruhr/alte-apotheke/2018/08/10/trotz-an...

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#53

Post by davedx »

GrumpyNl wrote: post #24

Great journalism by FollowTheMoney.( with 12 other countries) Journalism the way it should be. Independent journalism payed by sponsors. https://www.ftm.nl/ , if you are dutch, you should sponsor them to.

Yikes, that site needs an epilepsy warning. :(

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#54

Post by eeZah7Ux »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #34

Compliance are for small-medium Business & for common people; once a Business or a person grows too big to fail, paying the fines or bribing the legislators is the common route in most parts of the world. I've anguished over this for years and have learned to accept it, depending upon where you live; this comment might sound entirely absurd.

Statistics show a strong correlation between personal wealth and conviction rate for those accused of serious crimes.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#55

Post by tasuki »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #47
collyw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a mathematical definition and a financial definition of a "billion".

In the US, there is only one meaning for billion. Thousands (10^3), millions (10^6), billions (10^9), trillions (10^12), quadrillions (10^15), etc. And 99% of people would have never heard of milliard or billiard or any other -ard.

No cue sports in the US?

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#56

Post by krylon »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #50

The German government did know about this stuff I think from 2002 or 2001 on, but still did not stop it until around 2012 in Germany and did not warn other countries, so it went on in those. I just can not understand, how the government of my country could work this way. It really borders to actively supporting this scam. In my opinion, not only the people that have done this (including many banks!), but also respons…

> But in Germany, if you are big enough or in government, you can do nearly everything without effects.

While I sadly agree, I would like to point out that this is true of many countries.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#58

Post by viraptor »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #21
buboard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in most non-English European languages i dont think that's true

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#Long_sca... The UK is the only place in Europe where "billion" means 10^9; in Eastern European languages, there simply isn't an equivalent word, and everywhere else it means 10^12.

An equivalent word for what? Poland is an EE language and has milion, miliard, bilion, biliard, etc.

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#59

Post by buboard »

Svip wrote: post #15
buboard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in most non-English European languages i dont think that's true

> i dont think that's true Here is a handy list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#Long_sca...

weird. Greek is short, not "other"

Re: The CumEx-Files – How Europe's taxpayers have been swindled of €55B

#60

Post by inetknght »

raffael-vogler wrote: post #52

correctiv.org is producing phantastic investigative journalism on a regular basis. one of their most important revelations recently was about a pharmacist who was selling heavily diluted cytostatic agents for chemo therapy. several people died because of this [1]. really awesome about correctiv is that they not just release their findings - they really make sure that something is going to be done about it. for exampl…

> it seems that journalism is more and more responsible for work police should be doing

I think this echoes a lot of sentiment, if perhaps without concrete evidence, across the world.

How can we solve this?

Post reply on HN