Let our tax inspectors in to keep an eye on you, Germany tells Greece

BERLIN is demanding Greece allows in German tax inspectors to root out corruption and make sure national coffers receive their due in a country where revenue evasion is an art form.

More than 160 volunteers from various finance offices in Germany are on standby – most of them speak English and at least a dozen of them Greek – and are ready to attempt to get Greeks to pay their fair share of income tax.

Finance department secretary of state Hans Bernhard Beus announced his plan to the WirtschaftsWoche business magazine. It comes just weeks after Europe rejected a German move for a financial overlord to oversee all of Greece’s books in a bid to avert financial meltdown.

But in order to receive billions in bailout funds, Greece has had to agree to fire dozens of underperforming tax inspectors in the coming months.

Germany believes its “foreign legion” of accountants will be able to drive out in excess of £50 billion, either hidden under mattresses or in secret accounts.

Greece views such an offer as “humiliating” and believes it to be one more attempt by Germany to take control of the nation piece by piece.

Opinion polls in Greece already show a sharp switch to the left. If left-wing parties win in April elections there are fears over what will happen to the debt deal and the billions in loans already shipped to Athens.

Another tranche of EU bailout money is due to go to Greece today after politicians in Berlin vote on it. They will do so against the backdrop of massive domestic discontent; a poll yesterday showed 63 per cent of Germans want Greece to get no more money.

The strength of public opposition to an increased bailout explains why Germany is pressing hard for its tax inspectors to go in and, in the words of one diplomat, “root out the corruption and inefficiency in the tax system once and for all”.

Mr Beus’ description of his tax squad as “volunteers” is meant to reduce the tensions between the two countries.

Another finance official, Thomas Schaefer of the state of Hesse, said he was looking at calling up a band of retired tax officials to move into Greece to help find the estimated €15-€20 billion in annual undeclared income. “It would be possible to mobilise such people with large practical experience quite easily,” he said.

Germans, who are making the largest financial contribution to the bailout to Athens, are growing increasingly impatient with what finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble recently described as a “bottomless pit” in Greece.

There is a growing awareness in Germany that its own prosperity is at risk as the debt crisis sucks in other countries and stifles demand within the currency bloc for German exports.

German criticism of Greece has reopened wounds in Greece dating back to the Second World War. Protesters in Athens burned a German flag earlier this month while Greek newspapers have portrayed Ms Merkel and Mr Schaeuble in Nazi uniforms.

Ms Merkel is opposed to Greece leaving the eurozone, but her Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union, face a difficult state vote in 2013 and have been pushing for Greece to quit.