Germany and Switzerland end tax dispute

Germany and Switzerland signed an agreement Wednesday to end years of dispute over unpaid taxes worth billions of euros, German Press Agency (DPA) reported. Under the deal signed in Bern, Swiss banks will apply a flat-rate tax to capital earnings on Germans'' bank accounts in Switzerland, which will then be passed on to German authorities. It is likely to take effect in 2013 and will equal the tax applied to citizens in Germany. Tax dodgers who have already amassed wealth in Switzerland will be subjected to a one-off tax of between 19 and 34 per cent, Berlin officials said. As a "goodwill gesture," Swiss banks are to pay German authorities 2 billion francs (2.8 billion dollars) up front, and the payment will later be adjusted according to the actual value of the recouped taxes. There are no definitive figures for the amount of unreported income Germans have stashed in Swiss bank accounts, though estimates place it at between 130 billion and 180 billion euros (187-258 billion dollars). As a result, the German tax authorities do not know how much they will benefit from the new law.