Bayern Munich President ULI HOENEß will go "on trial on Monday charged with tax evasion in a case that has shocked the nation and changed attitudes towards paying taxes," according to Erik Kirschbaum of REUTERS. Hoeneß, 62, has said that "he voluntarily alerted tax authorities in January 2013 about his Swiss bank account and undeclared income."
He has since "paid the back taxes and fines he owed and has said he hoped he could avoid prosecution."
But Hoeneß, who also owns a Bavarian sausage factory, "was charged in July with tax evasion after a long investigation." If convicted by the Munich state court, he "faces a possible jail sentence."
Prosecutors have charged Hoeneß, according to media reports, with evading €3.5M in taxes on €30M of income that was earned in his Swiss bank account through market trading between '03-09.
The case "prompted thousands of other people to pre-emptively pay back taxes in the hope of avoiding prosecution and has helped change the German public's view of tax evasion from being seen as a misdemeanour to a serious crime" (REUTERS, 3/7).
