Tonnage Tax (Merkel will Tonnagesteuer
erhalten)
The introduction of Tonnage
Tax in 2000 brought many problems with it. In order to reap the benefits of
more lenient taxation the shipowning companies were supposed to convert a
significant proportion of the employment contract of their vessel's crewmembers
to German contracts. The seafarer would have to be employed a German corporate
entity. This of course attracted various onerous social security and fiscal
contributions, both for the employee and employer. Also many seafarers were not
willing to accept this change. A way around this was to make false declarations
as to who was on board, issue fake contracts, and false invoices, AND FAKE PAY
SLIPS AND SOCIAL SECURITY/TAX DECLARATIONS (produced by outsourcing to Thien
& Heyenga (T&H Leer).
Changes to fall in line with the
system were made very slowly. Some vessels were 'easier' to change over than
others. Within the
'Briese/Leda' group a schedule had to be kept of 'Real' and 'Fake' Tonnage Tax
vessels.
Here is an example from January
2002
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