WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

A protective human chain encircles the Bismarck School in Stuttgart Feuerbach. The city
council had planned to sell this school along with 26 others in Cross Border Leasing
deals (photo: Stuttgarter Wasserforum)
It is possible that private enterprises, too, have long since discovered
similar forms of “tax optimisation” and are causing hitherto unknown
amounts of revenue losses through CBL deals. Critics suspect that banks
such as the Deutsche Bank, various provincial state banks and Debis
(DaimlerChrysler) are using highly complex constructions to write
off investments in connection with CBL transactions, for example via
“intermediate companies” in tax havens such as Bermuda or Barbados.
The Deutsche Bank, which has been particularly active in CBL
deals, was able to declare profits of €3·6 billion for the fiscal year 2002.
Only around 400 million of these poured into the tax office, however,
representing a taxation rate of 11 per cent. The top rate of taxation for
2002 stood at 48·5 per cent. This discrepancy can only be explained
by the fact that those companies which anyway rake in astronomical
profits are able to dip into a box full of tax-depreciation tricks in order
to secure tax benefits for themselves.
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