Berlin 08-02-2010
It has been reported that the German tax authorities this weekend purchased compromising data on about 1,500 German clients of a Swiss bank.
This easy willingness from the side of the German state to shamelessly pay for stolen bank data –‘Wild West’ practices in fact -have shaken the Swiss private banking industry and whipped up emotions in both nations.
Intense media coverage of the action against tax evaders has been popular among average Germans – while Schaeuble’s own CDU party is becoming more and more un-popular.
‘Populism’ can be defined as the philosophy of urging social and political system change that favours ordinary people over the privileged elites – or put another way -favours the common people over the rich and wealthy business owners. ‘Populists’ are by definition against big business.
So it is always amusing when politicians from the CDU dress-up as so-called ‘Populists’ so they can ‘help the ordinary tax-payer’.
German Finance minister Schaeuble of the CDU seems to be doing just that when he said on Sunday that ‘the German public has no tolerance for a state that does not do its utmost to fight tax evasion’. To add some spin to this theme he also alluded to the growing social tension caused by the global financial credit crisis, growing unemployment and the large bonus payments being paid out by large corporations.
Using the same logic the German public also has no tolerance for a state that compensates large banks and large corporations – in this very same crisis bank bailouts shifted huge private sector debt onto the unwilling German taxpayers – but the minister made no mention of this nor how this over-riding problem was to be addressed in the long term.
Misery loves company and in order to diffuse the controversy and spread the blame of these very questionable practices – making its own action look more legitimate and palitable- the German Finance Ministry will pass on any information obtained about tax evaders in other EU countries to them for free.
How kind of them.
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