“White money strategy.”
Under-the-table money is called Schwarzgeld, black money. Before Switzerland got rid of banking secrecy this year by joining the O.E.C.D.’s common standard for automatically sharing account holders’ banking data with the tax authorities in the account holders’ home countries, Switzerland first adopted a so-called “white money strategy” for several months. The Süddeutsche Zeitung said the policy involved trying to only attract and manage legal money. In some cases, under this policy, Swiss banks pressured their clients to make things right with the tax authorities at home, or lose their Swiss bank account.
How Switzerland’s new rules will look remains unclear, said the Süddeutsche. It’s possible that it may be easy to get around them by using letterbox firms or “shell” companies. “The only thing that will help against that is transparent company registers.”
(VICE geld shtraw tegue eee.)
German WOTD 