Tax Waiver Case

WKStA Charges Investor Wolf and Former Finance Minister

(Bild: Martin A. Jöchl)

Businessman and major investor Sigi Wolf is being charged with bribery and incitement to abuse of office. The Public Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA) confirmed this on Thursday. Former Finance Minister Hans-Jörg Schelling is also being charged.

Also charged in the case are a former tax office director and former Finance Minister Hans-Jörg Schelling—the latter for attempted incitement to abuse of office.

According to the WKStA’s indictment, Wolf allegedly offered the then-head of a tax office support for her ongoing application to become head of another tax office if, in return, she approved his request for a tax waiver of approximately 630,000 euros, which he had submitted to her tax office.

Meeting with Wolf at a highway rest stop
The offer was reportedly first made during a meeting at the Guntramsdorf highway rest stop in 2018. Neither the meeting nor the multiple exchanges of messages with Wolf during the tax proceedings, nor the corrupt offer, had been documented by the tax office director in the case file. The other officials involved in the tax matter in an official capacity had not been informed of this.

(Bild: Martin A. Jöchl)

The head of the tax office reportedly accepted the offer, initiated the necessary internal steps—against the legal opinion of her deputy—and approved the application six weeks after the initial offer.

Furthermore, she violated her duty of confidentiality by passing on confidential information from the proceedings regarding the revocation of this leniency to the taxpayer, Wolf, in 2019, the indictment states.

Schelling intervened for tax relief
Former Finance Minister Hans-Jörg Schelling is being charged because, after the end of his term as finance minister, he asked the then-Secretary General of the Ministry of Finance, Thomas Schmid, to advocate for Wolf’s tax debt to be waived.