The Federal Tax Office of Germany, on the personal instructions of the Minister of Finance of Germany Olaf Scholz, bought a disc containing "tax-related data from the Emirate of Dubai,” DW reports.
"We are talking about identifying possible tax crimes. Tax evasion is not some minor offense, but a crime. In this case, there can be no concessions," said the politician who will compete for the post of German chancellor at the Bundestag elections in September.
Earlier, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported that Olaf Scholz had instructed to buy data that is likely to help uncover large-scale tax fraud. It was noted that the disc acquired by the Federal Tax Office contains data from millions of taxpayers, including several thousand German citizens who own land and real estate in Dubai.
According to Scholz, the acquisition of these data by the Ministry of Finance will allow uncovering serious cases of tax evasion involving residents of various federal states of Germany. According to Der Spiegel, an anonymous source offered to sell the data, the transaction price amounted to two million euros.
This is the first time a federal tax agency has purchased such data. Previously, similar transactions were made by the federal states or other federal structures, in particular the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany (BND).
