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Agency sets up to help report tax evasion in Germany

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Agency sets up to help report tax evasion in Germany
Could the taxman come a-calling? Photo:DPA

Companies already exist to dump your partner, or provide fake alibi to a spouse – now a firm has been set up to enable people to report someone to the authorities for tax evasion.

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After the German government paid more than €50 million for details of tax evaders in Liechtenstein, one enterprising businessman has scaled down the principle and is offering to process a report to the taxman – for a share of the reward naturally.

Jörg Sprave has founded his company Steuerverrat.de in Hagen, near Dortmund, with the call, “Do you have information about a case of tax evasion? Perhaps you even have proof? You want to make easy money from the information you have? Then this is the right place for you.”

Sprave says he intends to pocket 15 percent of the reward paid by the tax authorities on successful prosecutions.

Clemens Teschendorf from Berlin’s finance office told Die Welt, “The entire breadth of human relationships are shown in the people who come and make a complaint here.”

He said reports of tax evasion were submitted by craftsmen who had not been paid, to jealous neighbours to company owners in conflict with business partners. Even spouses have been known to report each other to the tax authorities.

Sprave says he is going to give the company two months to make a profit from this hatred and jealousy. “We are an agency which handles information and expect to succeed,” he said.

The idea seems to have come to him after a co-worker reported him for alleged tax evasion – an allegation that turned out to be false.

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