vinko:

In fairness to Boris, Germany's tax collectors are vicious fanatics who want to make a name for themselves by bringing down a famous person. They are relentless and they do not want to hear anything that disagrees with them. They have forced most of Germany's athletes and entertainers to flee the country. Boris could have stayed in Monaco and out of their clutches but he made the mistake of returning home and once he did that they said anything he ever earned in his life belonged to them. To Germany's tax collectors Boris was like an elephant suddenly parking himself in front of a hunter armed with a telescope and a high powered shot gun. They were out for big game and they got it. 

I lived in Europe for over 15 years, seven of them in Germany, the rest in Austria and Switzerland. Germany has one of the most liberal and lenient legal systems in the world, perhaps as overcompensation for its horrific past in which the judicial branch served Adolf. Athletes don't flee the country, they merely take advantage of residency laws that result in significant tax breaks for the wealthy who live outside of Germany (and can document that) for at  least 10-11 months out of the year. Maximum in-residence tax for Germans is comparable to US rates and that's before deductions. So to state that they are driven out is patently absurd! Becker was actually spared (but could have been imprisoned and was close to being incarcerated based on the facts relating to his case) by this very liberal system (in Germany Wesley Snipes and other celebrity tax dodgers would never have been imprisoned). He claimed residency in Monte Carlo but it was clear that he was spending most of his time in Munich.

The US IRS is much more draconian; just look at the recent UBS incident. Moreover, the USA and Switzerland (surprisingly) are the only top 20 nation members who have dual-taxation laws in place to prevent such exoduses. Americans, for example, cannot live in Monte Carlo or elsewhere to avoid paying taxes in the USA, there is an annual $70,000.00 deduction for expatriates and that's is. That's why there are no American top athletes legally residing in Monte Carlo and other tax havens; because, at most, they would receive a $70,000.00 deduction (capped at annually), peanuts to someone making millions, and those millions would be taxed in the USA, irrespective of where a citizen (athlete or whomever) or even legal resident of the USA resides. By constrast, German and other EU, Asian and Austrailian/South African elite athletes who reside in Monte Carlo and like-tax governed nations enjoy massive tax breaks so long as they can document being out of their country of legal residency for whatever stipulated time period since there is no income tax in these havens and non-resident citizens are not double taxed (as Americans and Swiss are).

That's why German athletes and super earners live in Monte Carlo and elsewhere. This also explains why Federer remains a legal resident of Switzerland since no matter where he lives he is liable, as an American would be, to double-taxation (which is also ironic since Switzeland is also known as being a tax haven, with one Kanton [Zurs] having the most favorable tax situations for foreigners; but not for its own nationals [a small country like Switzerland needs all of the tax revenue that it can get from its citizens just like big countries, come to think of it, who are notorious for squandering revenue]).

Ironically, this state of affairs makes the USA less competitive when it comes to international business and especially hiring by multi-national concerns who are forced to excessively compensate Americans that they hire to make up for the double tax hit that they are subjected to. This dual-taxation situation results in international firms hiring less Americans for overseas assignments. 

Germany has a very lenient judicial system when it comes to crimes against another person. That explains why the man who stabbed Monica Seles never served a day in prison. The judges who presided at the trial treated Monica as if she were the real criminal and treated the attacker as if he were a victim.

When it comes to financial matters the situation is totally reversed. Steffi Graf's dad was sent to prison for dubious tax charges. Mr. Graf goes to jail for tax issues while the man who stabs Monica Seles walks away from an attempted murder without so much as a day in prison. The tax authorities wanted to make a name for themselves so they went after the Grafs. That's what tax bureaucrats do.  

 

Your anecdotal case study (i.e. the Graf case) in no way reflects the reality of the German tax system and related judicial consequences pertaining to tax evation which as with other crimes is one of the most, if not the most liberal penal system in the world. There was nothing "dubious" about Peter Graf's tax case, he was accused and found guilty of massive tax fraud and in the end "only" served 10 months of what was originally a 45 month sentence. Numerous mitigating circumstances landed Graf in jail; as did other factors keep Becker out of jail.

Making a "name for themselves," what sort of name did they make for themselves; no one has a clue as to who these people are?

 

Sweden is the country that drives all of its athletes and musicians running for cover. It has a confiscatory tax rate and stars from Borg to Wilander to ABBA's musicians leave as soon as they can. I just checked a web site that has tax rates for different countries and Germany's tax rates are way lower than in Sweden. Here is the Swedish contradiction. It has the most gorgeous women in the world and the most scary tax rates in the world.  

The current administration in Germany has made an effort to get taxes lower. They realized that Germany was losing productive people. They don't want Germany to end up like Sweden where there has been no job growth for decades. Even the beautiful Swedish women leave as soon as they can get an overseas modeling contract.

The tax authorities in Germany took a look at Boris Becker and they did not like what they saw. Here was a young man with a glamorous job, beautiful women on his arm, and an adoring fan base. The bureaucrats sat in their cubicles in Bonn and decided this can not pass. The bureaucrats were doing a 9 to 5 and there was Boris, hitting the night spots in London, Miami, Rome etc. They set their sights on Boris and chased him like Inspector Javert. They found some trivial thing like Boris didn't report that he got a free meal at the Wimbledon party and they pounced. The whole thing was a farce but in Germany's courts they may not take attempted murder seriously but by God you better report that Xmas turkey on your income tax. The tax bureaucrats got their names in the paper and that's what these previously unknown bureaucrats wanted.

As I said, the current administration over there has improved things a bit but it is too late for Boris. He had to settle up with them to keep them from harassing him for the rest of his life.

What absolute bunk. Where do you come up with this stuff? Free dinners at Wimbledon. Unless you lived in Germany during the Becker-Graf-Stich glory years of German tennis, can speak and read fluent German you cannot possibly analyze and debate the German tax and legal systems credibly. Becker was convicted and given probation for flaunting residency laws. Had he been able to document that he really lived in Monte Carlo for the required preponderance of the time he never would have been indicted. He was living in Germany full time and no one can do that in any country and get away with not paying taxed. Petet Graf could have spared himself much grief and a prison term by moving to Monte Carlo to avoid taxes on this % of Graf's earnings and other income but instead chose to stay put and lie about his income. But the greater point is, Germany's tax structure has always been fair and does not have a duel taxation component like in the USA and Switzerland and the public services including the health care system puts the American one to shame; take that from an American who actually lived in Germany and elsewhere in Europe for many years.

I agree - also from the perspective of having lived as a child and adult in two different Eur. countries as well as the US.  If you want to be a tax exile to avoid taxes, you have to be a tax exile.  If you want to spend most of your time in a particular country, you have to pay taxes there.  If you talk to anyone who has moved somewhere to avoid taxes at home, you'll see that the count the days they are allowed to be in their country of origin without paying taxes incredibly carefully.  You can't have your cake and eat it too in that regard as Becker discovered - in Germany, any place in Europe or I should add in the US.

The government there hounded Boris to stay as a German and play for the German Davis Cup. Boris did it as a favor to them and look what happened. They persecuted him because he didn't put down on his tax form that he got tea and crumpets after he won Wimbledon.

The tax collectors over there are fanatic. They view someone like Boris Becker as the enemy who must be destroyed. While the tax collectors sat in their cubicles they saw Boris squiring beautiful women around and they set out to make an example out of them. Most lawyers over there will tell you that the charges against Boris were all nonsense but they would have hounded Boris for decades and even when Boris won it would have cost him too much time and legal and accounting fees to be worth it. Boris wanted to be with his father before he passed away and just decided to settle with the bureaucrats and get them out of his life once and for all.

Nobody who achieves any success there ever stays there. Their tax rate is so high and the tax collectors so relentless that most productive people leave as soon as they can. The current administration there is trying to change this pattern but it's like beating your head against the wall. The tax collectors are an immovable object no matter what party is in office. 

I don't want to turn this thread into a debate on health care but Germans, particularly older Germans, ruin their health with the awful diet they eat of sausages and heavy creams that they throw on everything and all the cigarette smoking they do. I imagine that the German heath care system is drowning in all the heart surgery and other coronary artery diseases that result from this awful diet. Bratwurst and wienerschnitzel and those huge sausage plates that Germans love to have for lunch and dinner would destroy the arteries of anyone. And then manyolder Germans smoke like chimneys. So the Germans may have to have high taxes, even confiscatory taxes, to pay for the dreadful diets that they many Germans have. Boris should have done what Pete Sampras did. Pete was not willing to pay the 10.5% top rate in California state taxes. So he bought a house in Florida, which has no state income tax and lived there when he was not on tour. The California tax authorities are second to none when it comes to chasing people relentlessly in search of the last nickel they can take from citizens. Pete's accountants and agents made sure that Pete was squeaky clean. Now it may or may not be true that Germany has crazed tax collectors. But they can't be as crazy as the shlumps that work for the California Tax Department. As Al Jolson would say: "You ain't seen nothin' yet". 

I don't think the Germans even cook that stuff. They eat a monstrosity called blood sausage  which I think gained its name because there is actually blood in that thing.

LOL at the hostile stereotypes of Germans in this thread ...

In fairness we should point out that the British diet may be even worse. For breakfast they eat bacon which does not look like it was ever cooked. They may slap it in the pan for thirty seconds but that's about it. They eat another dish called haddish or something similar which is sheep intestines and another one called kippers which looks like an eel. Maybe it really is an eel but whatever it is, it doesn't look too inviting. For liquid refreshment they drink barley water. Barley water tastes like the stuff the gastroenterologist makes you drink before a colonoscopy. It produces the same results too.

No wonder they haven't won Wimbledon since Fred Perry 70 years ago.