Yesterday, the German government would have had the opportunity to demonstrate that it is really serious about the fight against tax evasion. The interior ministers of the EU deliberated about Liechtenstein's joining the Schengen Treaty to which they finally gave their blessing. Instead of imposing sanctions against countries which owe their wealth to lax tax laws and a strict bank secret, the border controls to the principality of Liechtenstein were now lifted, which in the future might make the transport of money past the tax man even easier.

The decision shows mainly one thing: That the public authorities lose far more than 50 billion Euros per year by way of tax evasion abroad is owed not only to the existence of tax oases. Rather these only use all possibilities consequently that are offered to them by the governments of the EU states. Also moral outrage about the behaviour of the upper 10,000, who try to evade their tax duties by countless tricks, does not help us. Instead, there finally should be taken effective means against tax evasion.

A policy that wants to tackle the problem of tax evasion by way of an amnesty for tax fraud or the ever further lowering of tax rates on interest and capital incomes, in the light of the current tax scandal, can be considered for the time being to have failed. Unimpressed by all of that, the Federal Government for 2009 plans the introduction of a compensatory subsidy on capital yields that will not only contribute to an additional relief of wealth millionaires, but in addition make sure that capital incomes in the future do not even have to be laid open in tax declarations. Tax offices and tax investigators then will even have less clues in their search for flying tax billions.

What would need to be done instead? Reasonable first of all would be the radical reform of a tax system that – as far as the taxation of capital incomes is concerned - rather resembles a Swiss cheese. Instead of encouraging the tax counciling branch by ever more elaborate tax laws, the Federal Government should rather make sure that big earners and income owners are finally effectively controlled.

At the European level, secondly, the federal government needs to stand tall for a reform of the interest directive. It needs to be changed in such a way that all capital incomes are reported and the information duty is extended from private persons to foundations, corporations and other legal persons. There finally needs to be a full stop to a policy that glorifies the "free movement of capital". The energy with which one sniffs for saved pennies on the accounts of Hartz IV recipients should be stuck into the surveillance of huge financial transactions. In particular cross-border capital traffic must finally be controlled and a comprehensive information system must be built up which informs about all interest and capital incomes.