Maya Forstater

You know what’s conspicuously absent in the #CumExFiles coverage and debate? The #TaxMantra. Almost no one (at least that I’ve seen?) is willing to stand up and say, “well, we’re just following the law”. The narrative is rather: “everyone did it!”

Why “following the law“? CumEx was illegal (at least in Germany it was) from the very beginning (which is the 70s). It was an institutional loophole, but not a legal one.

1) I think we have yet to ascertain the extent of illegality. 2) Because it’s been a consistent mantra in these types of scandal contexts

True on 2). But on 1): there is exactly one person in GER who's still convinced that it's legal - Hanno Berger. And he is so convinced that he hides in Switzerland since years. It's illegal.

Arguably, you could say the same thing about previous scandals (hence my original tweet): the “rest of the world” (slight exaggeration) were adamant revelations showed illegality, but those involved held firm on the #taxmantra nonetheless.

Can you give an example of what you are thinking of @phdskat ? In the cases I can think of where #taxmantra used it has been because the controversies were about legal tax practices, not fraud as in this case.