Did you know?

Germany’s second contribution to today’s article is even more bizarre than its first. A seldom-discussed and rarely used deduction in Germany’s tax law that permitted private businesses to write off the costs of bribery on their corporate income tax returns. According to BusinessWeek, the reason the deduction was not used more often is that it “requires names to be named” – both the business making the bribe and the business or individual accepting it. That being said, it’s still quite bizarre to hear about a western economic powerhouse like Germany not only permitting bribery within its borders, but exempting this universally condemned practice from income taxation. Quite understandably, German citizens without any ties to the business world were severely critical of this law, which was only eliminated in recent years.

Source: Billshrink.com