The German government has bought tax data from an anonymous source of "
millions
" of people with assets in Dubai that it intends to analyze to find fraudsters, he said on Wednesday.
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Berlin "
acquired data
" in "
February
" from an "
anonymous informant
", said the Ministry of Finance in a statement, confirming information published earlier this week by the German weekly Der Spiegel. This data "
contains information on millions of taxpayers around the world and several thousand Germans with assets in Dubai,
" he added. The tax authorities now want to detect, in these data, the presence of "
undeclared income
" and "
unknown possessions
" of the authorities, of people wanting to avoid tax in their country. The information has already been passed on to the German regions for their '
review
Berlin said.
2 million euros disbursed
According to the press, the government would have spent 2 million euros in total to obtain this information, contained in a CD.
"
We are using all the means at our disposal to detect tax offenses
," explained Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.
Data relating to foreign taxpayers will be "
made available to the countries concerned,
" said Maren Kohlrust-Schulz, director of the German tax authorities, quoted in a press release.
Dubai, like the whole of the United Arab Emirates, is particularly popular with global fortunes because of its particularly low taxes on assets and businesses.
Hot topic for states
However, the subject of tax evasion has become a hot topic for states around the world, in search of new resources, after spending billions of euros due to the coronavirus pandemic. In this context, the G7 countries signed an agreement in early June to determine a corporate tax rate of at least 15% worldwide, and thus limit tax competition between countries.
