How clans conquered the used car market with a tax trick
In Neukölln, family clans have sold imported used cars 10 to 15 percent cheaper because they use a trick to save on sales tax.
With a tax trick, three large families are said to have cheated the state by millions of euros when importing used cars from the Benelux countries since 2017. According to research by the “Tagesspiegel”, the perpetrators are men who have immigrated from Lebanon, who are attributed to the clan milieu, but who died belong to lesser-known families. Investigators estimate that they have turned over 50 million euros in the past five years and made a profit of up to ten million euros.
A tax loophole is said to have enabled them to conquer the used car market in Berlin. Members of the families live scattered in the Benelux countries, in Lebanon and in Germany. Clan company A from Berlin is said to have regularly ordered used cars from clan company B from the Benelux countries, but stated Bulgaria as the destination country.
Bulgarian peasants as straw men
Poor farmers were recruited as straw men for 500 euros. They recruited a company to officially purchase the cars. In this way, the clans would have saved the 19 percent sales tax due in the Federal Republic. “Because these farmers never sold a car in Bulgaria, no tax official there lists it according to sales tax,” says the report in the “Tagesspiegel”.
In fact, however, the cars were driven to Germany, provided with the legal vehicle documents from Belgium. In North Rhine-Westphalia they received transitional license plates and German papers and were then processed on online portals. The tax trick, writes the “Tagesspiegel”, the extended families could have offered the used cars ten to 15 percent cheaper than other dealers. The clans would have earned 5,500 euros per car, significantly more than competitors, who paid 19 percent sales tax to the state.