Anti-corruption minister says Lagarde list data inadequate for tax evasion crackdown
The Minister of State for Combating Corruption Panayiotis Nikoloudis told Parliament on Friday that the so-called Lagarde List of Greek depositers with Swiss bank accounts, and a series of similar lists, were inadequate without further data if reliable insights into suspected tax evasion are to be gained.
“If you try to do a tax audit using just the Lagarde List or the Luxembourg list or whichever other list you like, you can be certain that you will arrive at mistaken conclusions,” he said.
In addition to the data from the lists, “tax audits also require additional information from banks, stock exchanges and so on,” Nikoloudis said in a response to a question about the progress of of a tax evasion crackdown tabled in the House by Golden Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris.
As for checks on offshore firms, the minister said that 72 out of 766 had been inspected while checks on another 365 were under way.
