Malta has become the Panama of Europe after a data leak revealed that there are 70,000 offshore companies on the island, a regional German Finance Minister has claimed.

This comes after journalists reported that tax authorities in the city of Wuppertal were provided with the data from an anonymous source.

It has been claimed that there are multiple German companies and up to 2000 German taxpayers currently registered in Malta.

In a press release, Mr Walter Borjan's ministry said that "The data reveals how corporations and private persons on the Mediterranean island use company braids to bypass tax in Germany in a big way."

"This is partially done with legal tricks, but often also by means of offshore companies, which serve exclusively as tax evasion constructions." 

He went on to say that he was willing to share tax information with other countries around the world.

However, in Malta "offshore companies are set up to transfer profits or assets abroad to the German Treasury and to hide them in inactive mailbox companies"

"Time and again, the investigators also come across company models that were created with the purpose of bypassing corporate taxes in Germany." 

Photo: Staatskanzlei NRW / R. Sondermann