Croatian citizens have EUR 200m in Swiss banks, FinMin says

He was responding to questions from the press before a government meeting, saying "we will also take all the necessary steps with our colleagues from the euro area to get that information together."

Lalovac on Tuesday instructed the Money Laundering Prevention Office and the Tax Administration to identify those depositors. However, under an agreement with the European Union, Switzerland does not reveal depositors' names but pays all member states part of the interest tax it collects in return, he said.

The interest tax is 35% and Switzerland transfers 75% of the tax collected to the EU member states, including about CHF 1 million to Croatia last year, he said.

The issue of depositors' names and whether this is enough for the EU, or if it is a tax evasion issue far exceeding the amounts member states are receiving, will now be raised at the council of euro area finance ministers.

"Croatia will act as the other countries. We will get those names if the other countries get them," Lalovac said, adding that Croatia can act only as defined by the Switzerland-EU agreement.

He said one of the next steps was to establish any disproportion between savings and assets, if those depositors had any assets in Croatia and if they were illegally gained. "It's not just about paying taxes, but perhaps about seizing gains if the assets were not gained legally."

Asked if he and the prime minister would discuss today possible tax benefits on housing loan interest, Lalovac said this was still under negotiation.

The problem with loans pegged do the Swiss franc is not interest but the principal and "we would like commercial banks to relieve the principal... so that we will offer certain tax benefits to banks too if they write off part of the principal," he said.

(Hina) ha

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