After almost two years of work, the Economic and Corruption Public Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA) has completed its investigation into the Vorarlberg Business Association advertising affair. According to a report in the “Vorarlberger Nachrichten”, the WKStA sent a project report to the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office, which presented it to the Federal Ministry of Justice. Now the okay has to come from there before it is clear what will happen next.
“We submitted a project report in this case to the public prosecutor’s office a few days ago. The project report concerns all parts of the investigation that have not yet been completed. Unfortunately, I cannot disclose details about this,” WKStA spokesman René Ruprecht was quoted as saying in the “VN”. . Corruption investigations by the WKStA concern former Economics Councilor Karlheinz Rüdisser, ex-Head of the Economic Association and ex-President of the Economic Chamber Hans Peter Metzler, and Jürgen Kessler, who was employed under Metzler as Director of the Economic Association.
The preliminary investigations against State Governor Markus Wallner and the current State Councilor for Economic Affairs Marco Tittler had already been closed in June 2023. The allegations against the two politicians were not substantiated.
In addition to the WKStA, the Feldkirch public prosecutor’s office is also investigating the case. It is conducting investigations against Metzler and Walter Natter – Kessler’s predecessor – and they are accused, among other things, of intentional tax evasion. The tax authorities are also investigating Kessler. These investigations are ongoing, as Heinz Rusch, spokesman for the Feldkirch public prosecutor’s office, told the “VN”.
The public prosecutor’s investigation is based on a tax audit by the Vorarlberg Economic Association. In the course of the review, both Metzler and Kessler resigned. The business association had filed a voluntary disclosure in connection with the tax audit and justified itself by saying that it had “overlooked” a new legal situation, but the auditors, on the other hand, saw deliberate evasion. As a result of the tax audit, which lasted more than eight months and dealt primarily with the taxes for advertisements that were sold for the publication “Vorarlberger Wirtschaft”, the organization had to pay around 484,000 euros in sales tax, 388,000 euros in corporate income tax and around 106,000 euros in donations tax for the years from 2016 to 2021, which the business association partially objected to. In the course of the investigation, allegations of corruption also emerged.
2024-03-16 08:39:54