The public has no tolerance for a state that does not do everything it can to fight tax evasion, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Sunday. Defending his decision to buy Swiss bank account data from a whistleblower even though they were stolen, he said social upheaval from globalisation and the financial crisis has created an atmosphere where the public demands fair tax collection.
"In view of growing social tensions caused by globalisation, the financial market crisis and the ludicrous bonus payments on the one hand along with growing unemployment on the other, it would be completely unbearable if the state didn't do everything possible to ensure taxes were collected fairly," Schaeuble said. In the interview with ZDF television, Schaeuble said the roots of the problem of tax evasion have to be resolved through increased international co-operation.
"Obviously the problem has deeper roots," said Schaeuble, who has said Switzerland's bank secrecy must be scrapped. "We have to resolve the problem and fight tax evasion with greater co-operation internationally and in the European Union." According to Focus magazine, German tax authorities this weekend acquired data on 1,500 German clients of a Swiss bank.
Despite protests from Switzerland, Germany has said it was prepared to pay 2.5 million euros for the stolen data said to be rich in detail about tax evaders that could, according to media reports, yield at least 400 million euros in tax revenues.
Germany's willingness to pay for the stolen bank data has shaken Switzerland's large private banking industry and stirred emotions in both countries. Germany already paid for stolen data in 2008 when it purchased information taken from Liechtenstein's top bank LGT, forcing the tiny principality to give up bank secrecy rules.
The German Finance Ministry plans to make any information obtained about tax evaders in other European Union countries available for free to those states, sources told Reuters.