Lars Klingbeil wants to fight undeclared work more

According to 2024, Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil (SPD) uncovered a total of 766 million euros. Klingbeil announced the number of the annual report of the annual report of customs this Wednesday to the daily newspapers of the Funke media group.

“If we further intensify the investigation, we will uncover more, protect people from exploitation and secure government income,” said Klingbeil. The SPD politician announced a bill to the Funke newspapers to better combat the undeclared work, which his ministry wanted to bring in before the summer break.

He also announced that the controls in the event of undeclared work and tax fraud. “I want to send my customs officials off, there is enough to look,” said the SPD federal party leader at an event in Lüneburg. “I have the impression that my previous predecessor Christian Lindner was not quite as ambitious.” It is about income of billions of euros that were lost to the state.

Despite the lack of personnel, one can do more than before: “Those who are at customs have to be used well to combat tax fraud”. The problem of undeclared work and illegal employment has been around for many years, “but I’ve only been finance minister for three weeks,” said Klingbeil.

The number of total damage caused by undeclared work for 2024 is a significant increase compared to the previous year. In 2023, the damage was still 615 million euros in the context of the criminal and finance law investigation in Germany. Experts assume that the number of unreported cases should be significantly higher.

The finance minister announced the use of an automated data analysis to the Funke newspapers in the fight against undeclared work, for example with the help of artificial intelligence. The focus of the financial inspectors is therefore on the hairdresser, cosmetics and barbershops as well as nail studios.