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Becker heads for Swiss tax oasis
(CNN) -- Former tennis star Boris Becker, who is serving a suspended two-year jail term for tax evasion, is leaving Germany to set up home in a Swiss tax oasis. Becker, 35, is to move his home and business to the tiny canton of Zug, which has one of the lowest rates of tax in the world. He joins fellow German sports stars Michael Schumacher, the five-time Formula One motor-racing champion, and Jan Ullrich, the 1997 Tour de France winner, in setting up homes in Switzerland. Becker says he intends to move into a flat in Zug so he can take his time choosing a suitable home. "I'm looking forward to living in Switzerland. Friends have spoken in such glowing terms about the advantages this country has to offer, although of course I will still keep my allegiance to Germany," he said. He has formed a new company, Boris Becker & Co, with his business partner Hans Dieter Cleven, based in Zug. "Switzerland is the ideal business and residential location for an internationally active person like Boris," said Cleven. Income tax rates in Germany reach 48.5 percent for top earners. In Zug, they rise no higher than 7 percent. Becker, who won six grand-slam titles, achieved international stardom in 1985 when he won Wimbledon as an unseeded teenager. But since retiring from tennis in 1999, he has run into trouble with a costly divorce, an admission he fathered a child with a Russian model, a string of failed business adventures and prosecution for tax evasion. (Profile) He was given a suspended two-year prison sentence and fined 300,000 euros for tax evasion by a court in Munich last October. (Full story) He also had to pay 200,000 euros to various charities as a condition for the suspended sentence, plus more than 3 million euros owed to tax authorities. Becker had claimed residence in the tax haven of Monaco while actually staying in Munich between 1991 and 1993.
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