Munich Regional Court - Mask affair: Politician's daughter Andrea Tandler sentenced to more than four years in prison
The politician's daughter and entrepreneur Andrea Tandler has been sentenced to four years and five months in prison for tax evasion in the coronavirus mask scandal. Her co-defendant business partner N. was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison by the Munich I Regional Court on Friday.
This was preceded by a plea bargain between the court and the parties involved in the proceedings. The public prosecutor's office had then demanded sentences at the upper end of the range proposed by the court, which would have been four years and nine months for Tandler and four years for N.. The defense lawyers, on the other hand, had pleaded for sentences at the lower end, which would have been four years and three months for Tandler and three years and six months for N.
Mask affair: Andrea Tandler did not pay the correct tax on agency commission
Tandler is the daughter of former CSU General Secretary and former Bavarian Finance, Economics and Interior Minister Gerold Tandler. At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, she brokered deals with various federal and state authorities for a Swiss mask supplier. Commission payments of almost 50 million euros were made for this - which is legal in itself.
Both have now been convicted because they did not pay tax on the commissions correctly and were therefore liable to prosecution. At the end of the trial, the public prosecutor's office had estimated the total economic loss at 7.8 million euros.
Defendants confess to tax evasion
In the end, the two defendants largely admitted the tax evasion charges against them through their defense lawyers, specifically the charges of income and trade tax evasion. Among other things, they did not pay tax on the income from the mask business in Munich, but in Grünwald - where only around half of the trade tax is due compared to the state capital. However, Munich was the "place of management" at the time.
In addition, they have since paid the tax loss incurred. The proceedings regarding evasion of gift tax and coronavirus subsidy fraud were discontinued by the court on Tuesday.
The arrest warrants against the two defendants were suspended on Friday subject to conditions - the public prosecutor's office had also recently agreed to the court's proposal. This means that after around eleven months in pre-trial detention, both will be released for the time being. Tandler, who suffers from health problems, will probably have to undergo another operation, according to her lawyer.
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Source: www.stern.de
