The German Federal Court of Justice announced new guidelines for penalties on tax fraud in a press release from 3 December 2008. According to these guidelines, a tax fraud “of high
dimension” is to be assumed if the tax damage is more than EUR 50,000 (approx. USD 62,000).
The Court further noted that, in such cases, the general penalty should be jail time and that a fine will only be applied if there are important extenuating circumstances. The Court pointed out, however, that jail time might be limited to probation to the extent that the tax
damage is less than EUR one million (approx. USD 1.2 million).