A citizen’s advocacy group is adding its voice to calls for a significantly streamlined tax declaration process for employed individuals in Germany. Anne Brorhilker, Managing Director of “Bürgerbewegung Finanzwende” – a group focused on financial transparency – described proposals for a largely automated system as a “win-win situation” for both citizens and tax authorities.
Brorhilker, a former public prosecutor, argued that automation would alleviate the burden on taxpayers while freeing up crucial personnel within tax administrations. This would allow authorities to redirect resources to areas where they are most needed, rather than dedicating them to processing routine individual tax filings.
The call for increased efficiency comes amid broader concerns about staffing shortages across multiple government agencies, including the judiciary, police forces and tax investigation units. Brorhilker specifically suggested a temporary measure of deploying federal tax auditors to individual states in order to bolster efforts to combat tax fraud within the financial sector.
Beyond personnel limitations, Brorhilker highlighted technological shortcomings and a lack of interoperability as major obstacles to effective tax enforcement. She pointed to outdated IT infrastructure and the absence of a unified national system spanning federal and state levels, hindering information sharing between agencies. This, she contends, creates a perceived low risk of detection for potential offenders.