Tax "whorehouse" slings Nazi allegation

Tax Notes International is a rather high-brow and well-informed tax publication, and it recently started one of its news items as follows:

"The mess in Liechtenstein has compelled Europeans to do something about those little financial whorehouses on the edge of town."

Strong stuff, but not nearly as strong as the accusation that Liechtenstein today leveled against Germany, when Crown Prince Hans-Adam II infuriated German Jews, and many others, by referring to the current German government as the "Fourth Reich" . He made the startling allegation against this rather pacifist nation in a letter in which he rejected a request from the Jewish museum in Berlin (well worth visiting, if you're in the area) to borrow a painting. He refused to lend the artwork to the museum blaming the fact that Germany paid for client data from the prince's LGT Group bank. (As we've already pointed out: no conflict of interest there, then.)

The Central Council of Jews in Germany responded by saying the prince was "trivializing'' the crimes of Nazi Germany by comparing the modern German government with Hitler's regime.