Hoeness alleged tax liability soars to 23.7 million euros

Deutsche Welle, 11 March 2014

The amount of money involved in a tax case against Bayern Munich President Uli Hoeness has risen - again. An official claims Hoeness is liable for a greater figure than the amount to which he himself confessed.

A tax investigator on Tuesday told the Munich court that Hoeness had evaded taxes totalling at least 23.7 million euros.

The amount is greater than that to which Hoeness admitted on Monday, when he and his legal team made the admission that he had evaded some 18.5 million in taxes.

The latest figure is almost seven times greater than that for which Hoeness was taken to court for failing to declare. The German football legend, who also runs a successful family sausage company, is charged with evading 3.5 million euros in taxes by hiding them in a Swiss bank account.

A tax investigator told the court that the new figure took into account the amount Hoeness should have paid for the years 2003 to 2006.

Earlier in Tuesday's hearing, the court heard that Hoeness had only supplied authorities with the required 70,000 pages of documents from his bank account two weeks before the start of the trial. It was alleged that he had held on to the information for more than a year before finally handing it over.

The data on a memory stick supplied to the tax office had only been compiled on February 24, the investigator said.

"However, the data on it was created on January 18, 2013 ... This was determined by our IT colleagues," she added.

'Deep regret'

On Monday, Hoeness caused a stir in court with the admission that he had evaded some 18.5 million in taxes. "I deeply regret my wrongdoing," he had said. "I will do everything necessary to ensure that this depressing chapter for me is closed."

Hoeness reported himself to authorities in early 2013 and paid 10 million euros voluntarily at the time. Any sentence handed down by the court is likely to depend on whether the admission was made early enough, and whether it was made only because Hoeness was aware of an investigation against him.

If convicted, Hoeness, who was part of West Germany's 1974 World Cup-winning squad, could face a sentence of between five and 10 years in jail.

The German taxpayers federation "BdSt" claims 55,000 tax evaders have turned themselves in over the last four years.

rc/se (AP, dpa, Reuters)

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