In Germany, is there a reward for reporting possible tax fraudsters or money launderers to the authorities? I could well be wrong and I don't want to go into specifics here, but... Let's assume I know of a business that in reality generates a few hundred thousand euros in revenue and yet shows a P+L with revenue far in excess of those numbers. This could imply they are laundering money — paying some tax just to get the money into circulation. Who would I report this suspicion to? If I were proven right, would there be a reward?
You can report your suspicions to any German police station or any prosecution service (Staatsanwaltschaft). Furthermore, in this case to any tax authority (Finanzamt). Your report may be made anonymous. You will not get a reward.
In the UK, generally there is no duty to report crime. There are circumstances where there is a duty to report suspicious activity or 'knowledge' or 'suspicion' of a crime. These include: financing of terrorism money laundering or dealing in other proceeds of crime (criminal property) or fraud in a regulated sector (e.g. solicitors, accountants, insolvency practitioners, finance, gambling) (unless the information comes to the person in 'privileged circumstances') In respect of such circumstances, as soon as Bob 'knows' or 'suspects' Rob is engaged in such behaviour Bob must report this to the authorities and must not tell Rob about it (the offence of 'tipping off'). Bob commits an offence if he doesn't report it. In terms of failure to report money laundering that could lead to a maximum of five years in prison and/or a fine. Depending on the circumstances an additional risk of failure to report is being perceived to have participated in the commission of the crime.
No, it doesn't seem like you did anything wrong. You can't have committed fraud because you didn't have the intent of entering the museum without paying. Fraud is defined in section 263 StGB: (1) Whoever, with the intention of obtaining an unlawful pecuniary benefit for themselves or a third party, damages the assets of another by causing or maintaining an error under false pretences or distorting or suppressing true facts […] You had no intention of obtaining an unlawful benefit. You presumably did not misrepresent your disability status. German criminal law has a related violation in Section 265a StGB, “obtaining benefits by deception”: (1) Whoever obtains the output of a machine or the services of a telecommunications network which serves public purposes or uses a means of transportation or obtains entrance to an event or facility by deception with the intention of not paying the fee […] Again, your lack of intent means that you haven't committed this crime. Interpreting what actually happened: The K20 ticket fees are reduced for severely handicapped people with 50% GdB (degree of disability indicating the person's difficulty of participating in society, in particular that person's difficulty for working a normal job, as determined by the VersMedV). You were not attested such a degree of disability via the German system, and therefore were not eligible for the discounted entrace fee of EUR 10. The museum has no obligation towards you to actually collect those fees. They can waive them whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. The museum could have given you the discounted price even without suitable evidence of your disability. Instead, they waived the fee entirely. If anyone is going to have problems here, it is the person at the ticket counter for failing to collect the appropriate fees. But that is an internal issue for the museum. You legally obtained a valid ticket to visit the museum. Translations were taken from the official page https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html
This question sounds to me like there is an inferred intent of the person giving the invoice to manipulate their value added tax rate due to the misclassification, and then an unrelated issue related to an overly high charge for the services which are basically independent. Is the classification of the job material in some way to either of those issues in a non-obvious way that you haven't clarified in your question? I will answer on the assumption that it is not, because at first glance, it is hard to see why this would matter with respect to either issue. A CVR listing is sort of half way between a U.S. Secretary of State company listing and a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission company listing with more than just bare bones contact information but less than a full fledged public company's disclosure statement. The fact that the company's business type classification is not a precise match for the kind of work that they did for you on this job is not obviously material to either what VAT taxes would be due (which usually depends upon the particular kinds of goods and services involved in the transaction) or the rate that a company can charge for a particular kind of work done. The fact that a company is classified in one category that describes the overall enterprise doesn't mean that every last thing done by the company must precisely fit that description. The mismatch could also conceivably be nothing more than a clerical error made by somebody preparing the CVR listing, in which case, again, the answer is "so what?" Therefore, as far as I can tell from the limited information in the question, this is just an immaterial error with no relevance to any of the likely disputes that you might have in this case. Usually, an immaterial error in a public record or invoice would not be a ground to object the amount that a company charged for the work, nor would it be something that would be appropriate to complain about in any way that would bring you an advantage that I can see in this transaction. This doesn't mean that you don't potentially have grounds to object to the invoice and dispute the higher than expected charges. But, bringing up the issue of the CVR code doesn't appear to add anything to your rights in this dispute. This said, I can certainly imagine circumstance where the wrong CVR code could be a hint that something else really is amiss. For example, suppose that you need a license to do a cleaning job since it involves environmental hazards and waste disposal, but you don't need a license to do management consulting, because who cares if someone is stupid enough to take your bad management advice. In that situation, the company might be misclassified because it doesn't have and perhaps cannot get for some reason, the business license that it needs to do the cleaning job. Charging for services while not having the proper business license might very well be illegal and a ground not to pay, and the error in the CVR filing might actually be an attempt to circumvent this problem. But, that kind of possibility relies upon pure speculation and without more facts there is no good reason to assume that something nefarious is going on here.
This answer is for the US (at least). You're assuming that if income is not in dollars or some other national currency, then it is not taxable. That is false. "Barter" income, in which you are paid in other property or services, is taxable just as if you were paid in cash, based on the "fair market value" (in dollars) of the property or services you received in exchange. See https://www.irs.gov/publications/p525/ar02.html#en_US_2016_publink1000229343. So the employees would be required to report the dollar value of their scrip as income. If they willfully failed to do so, or intentionally gave a dishonest estimate of its value, they could be prosecuted for tax evasion. Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/1494/ Dale M suggests, in a comment below, that the same rule applies in all other countries. This seems plausible, but to be certain, one would have to check them all, which I haven't done.
In the Netherlands, this qualifies as a deceptive trade practice (misleidende handelspraktijk) and is therefore directly illegal. It's likely also an unfair trade practice, (oneerlijke handelspraktijk) as the claim appears intended for end consumers. This means that the seller cannot count on the consumer knowing anythong about stuffase. It is a dutch implementation of EU directive 2005/29/EG, so similar laws apply in other EU countries. But the illegal per se part might vary.
No, filing a police report in good faith does not expose you to liability Of course, making false allegations or allegations where you are recklessly indifferent to the truth to police is both a serious crime in itself and defamation. Of course, breaking a contract is not a crime and the police are unlikely to take any action. If you borrow money from the bank and don’t pay it back, that’s not stealing or fraud unless it can be proven that you had no intention of paying it back when you borrowed it. This is a civil matter for the bank, not a criminal matter for the police.
Generally speaking, fraud in connection with an affirmative statement, in both criminal and civil cases, is limited to false statements of a presently existing material fact. Future income is not a presently existing fact. So, simply incorrectly stating your future income is not fraud. But, you are affirming when you make such a statement that you presently sincerely believe that you will have a future income of approximately the amount stated. And, if you make a statement about your future income when you do not actually believe that you will have that future income, then you have still committed fraud. In practice, there are lots of gray areas where a judge or jury considering the case would have to weigh the facts and your credibility. If you represented that you predicted that you would have an income of $1,000,000 in the next year, when you had never done so before and didn't even have any plausible plan other than playing the lottery for doing so, this would almost surely be credit card application fraud. On the other hand, if you represented that you predicted that you would have an income of $50,000 in the next year, when your income in past years had ranged from $30,000 to $45,000 from self-employment, and you believed sincerely that improvements in your marketing efforts and current economic trends were going to make the coming year your best year ever for income from self-employment that would give you a $50,000 income in the coming year, that would not be fraud. Where exactly the line between not fraud and fraud is drawn would be for the tier of fact to decide when and if the case went to trial.