The conservative CDU/CSU are pushing for establishing an investigation committee in the Bundestag regarding a tax scandal allegedly involving Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with allegations dating back to when Scholz was mayor of Hamburg between 2011-2018.

When Scholz was mayor of Hamburg, a regional bank was involved in a tax fraud scheme totalling €43 million. The Hamburg tax authorities, however, decided in 2016 not to levy the originally planned reclaim due to wrongly refunded capital gains tax. Since then, there has been the suspicion that Scholz might have influenced their decision.

The German government had previously prevented a questioning of Scholz in the Bundestag.

“Who bears political responsibility for the fact that Hamburg was the only one of the 16 German states in 2016 and 2017 that did not want to reclaim wrongly paid tax refunds from “cum-ex” transactions?” Franziska Hoppermann, a CDU member of the Bundestag from Hamburg, asked.

“This is also not a purely Hamburg matter, but the enforcement of federal law,” Middelberg stressed.

The SPD fired back and accused the CDU of using the establishment of the investigation committee for their “tactical interests.”

“The issue has been fully dealt with in parliamentary and social terms and is transparent,” Katja Mast, parliamentary director of the SPD parliamentary group, told the dpa news agency. “The Union has no interest in gaining insights but instead is pursuing party tactical interests. It makes claims that have long since been refuted,” she added.

(Oliver Noyan | EURACTIV.de)