The backlash has been swift in a country where anonymous denunciations recall the dark period of Nazi rule and mass surveillance under the communist government of East Germany.
The best-selling Bild daily slammed plans to create what it called a "tax Stasi”, a reference to the feared East German secret police who used a web of informants to keep tabs on citizens.
The Greens have "once again shown their true face”, the deputy leader of the Baden-Wuerttemberg conservatives, Thorsten Frei, said in a statement, despite his party being part of the ruling coalition in the state. "Every hard-working and tax-paying citizen” would now be under suspicion, he added.
While digitizing the tax system was important, "beginning with denunciations between neighbors is baffling”, the leader of the pro-business FDP party Christian Lindner told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. The initiative creates an "atmosphere of mistrust” said Bernd Goegel, the leader of the extreme-right AfD in Baden-Wuerttemberg. Baden-Wuerttemberg’s finance ministry brought the website online at the beginning of the week, promising a "secure and discreet” means of reporting potential tax crimes.
"Tax evasion is a slap in the face to all those who honestly pay their taxes,” said Danyal Bayaz, the state’s Green finance minister. A few weeks before the September 26 general election, the new initiative by Germany’s only Green-led state has stirred up debate in a country where tax fraud has been estimated at 50 billion euros ($59 billion) a year.
Germany has a "big problem”, said chancellor candidate Baerbock, rejecting comparisons with the Stasi as "mocking” its victims. —AFP