16.12.2023, Berlin.
The case of a German finance ministry official helping the rich avoid paying taxes was not the only one, ZDF TV wrote on December 14.
Earlier, ZDF TV channel showed a new documentary “The Secret World of the Super Rich – The Billion Dollar Game,” which showed footage of Federal Treasury employee Gerda Hofmann giving a presentation on tax evasion to wealthy people. This caused outrage in Berlin. Now it turns out that the problem turned out to be more serious.
Hofmann’s speech, shown by ZDF, was just one of many others. And she’s not the only Treasury employee to be moonlighting. Hofmann has been a regular speaker at tax law events since at least 2009. These include information events and seminars on specific tax topics, specialized congresses for tax advisers, and conferences such as the one shown in the ZDF documentary, where participants, especially wealthy clients, learn about possible tax loopholes.
Hoffmann made four appearances as a speaker in 2023, and further appearances are already planned for 2024. Tax officials from the Ministry of Finance sometimes earn tens of thousands of euros legally while working on the side is not something new – this was reported by the online platform Mäddenenwatch back in 2016.
In fact, federal officials are allowed to earn money from secondary activities, as long as they don’t take up too much time. Thus, Hofmann can earn an extra 40,000 euros or so per year, and in exceptional cases even more. In most cases, the well-paid outside activities were carried out by department employees dealing with inheritance and estate taxes. It is this department that Gerda Hofmann is currently in charge of. According to the data, it is the only department where employees report income of up to €50,000 from outside activities.
According to Timo Lange, a representative of the non-profit association LobbyControl, this behavior by Ministry of Finance employees damages the reputation of the federal government as a whole. “It is unclear why the Federal Ministry of Finance still condones its tax officials giving tax advice at exclusive private events and also partly making money from it,” he emphasized.
Lange calls for tougher rules for ministerial officials, similar to those already imposed on MPs. He believes that “the rules for civil servants should be adjusted so that it is clear: lectures on topics for which officials are responsible in their office should not be paid for by private third parties.”
The Gerda Hofmann case was also discussed in the finance committee of the Bundestag, with Left Party MP Christian Görke putting it on the agenda. In his interview with ZDF, he emphasized that officials in the German Finance Ministry apparently cannot understand that honest taxpayers feel cheated by such performances.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
