Does Hesse need an internet portal, based on the model of Baden-Württemberg, on which citizens can report tax evaders?

In response to a small question from the AfD parliamentary group, the finance minister in Wiesbaden stated several times that there was no need for it, but at the same time the introduction was not entirely ruled out.

Indeed, it needs to be carefully considered.

Anyone in Hessen who is annoyed that their neighbor is employing a cleaning assistant untaxed, that a relative who has fallen out of love cuts their hair black or that a landlord suspects it is difficult to produce a reasonable receipt can already look online for the nearest tax office Click on the general contact form and report it.

It's the same form that you can use to ask questions about your tax return.

Grant a leap of faith

In Baden-Württemberg, things have recently been done differently. A special platform has been activated there for reports of real or alleged tax evasion, and detailed data and the upload of documents are expressly requested. Contact form here, registration portal there: Technically, the difference is small, politically, however, considerable.

By creating such a portal, the government is literally asking for relevant news. However, the state should not treat its citizens with this mistrust. Conversely, there is also no portal for reporting mistakes by those in power; they are also to be granted a leap of faith on the part of the citizens. Of course there is tax fraud, also in completely different dimensions than the aforementioned, just like there are cyclists who drive over the traffic light when the lights are red, motorists who speed, and Hartz IV recipients who cheat the employment agency. Action must be taken against all of this - but in individual cases, and without the state assuming from the outset that all road users or service recipients would not adhere to the rules anyway.

Anyway: The resistance to taxes grows with their height, moderate taxation is more likely to be considered and observed.

And: the simpler the tax system, the more difficult it will be to evade.

Ministers should be more concerned with it than with headline-grabbing reporting portals.

The idea of ​​having the tax return on the beer mat was not at all stupid.