• Home
• /
• Business

German state mulls acquisition of Swiss bank data

The south-western state, home to nearly 11 million, has acquired a CD with sample data for 1,742 clients from a Swiss informer, the ministry said on Monday.

The CD was separate from others that have reached Germany, such as one in the hands of authorities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a ministry spokesman said.

The information related to large Swiss banks and insurers, the spokesman said. He declined to provide details of individual banks. From what the authorities had seen so far, it solely concerned Swiss financial institutions, he added.

Baden-Wuerttemberg would decide soon on whether to acquire the complete data, the spokesman said.

Despite protests from Switzerland, Germany said this month it would pay 2.5 million euros for stolen data said to be rich in detail about tax evaders that could, according to media reports, yield at least 400 million euros in tax revenues.

Tax offices in Lower Saxony, Hesse, NRW, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria among others have also reported a sharp upturn in tax compliance among Germans, who hold an estimated 200 billion euros in undeclared funds in Switzerland.