Taxes Complicate Bailouts

CK - Washington.   German enthusiasm for a statutory rescue package for the GM subsidiary, Opel, suffers. Reportedly, questionable profit transfers from Opel to GM resulted in the complete avoidance of profit taxation in Germany. At issue is a €655 million income shift, in the form of patent royalties, that nixed German tax claims. A similar complication arises in the joint U.S.-Switzerland rescue of UBS bank. As the Washington Post notes, one division of the Treasury de…