The German government  has ruffled relations with Switzerland and Liechtenstein over the purchase of tax data from thieves.

The government may be about to step up its pursuit of tax evaders amid reports that a new CD containing stolen bank data has been offered for sale to state authorities.

Schleswig-Holstein, the most northerly of Germany’s 16 states, is in talks with an unidentified source to buy the CD containing details of “hundreds” of people with money hidden in a bank in Liechtenstein, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported today, without saying where it got the information.

The data relates to accounts worth 500 million euros ($641 million) at Liechtensteinische Landesbank, the Munich-based newspaper said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government recouped 200 million euros in back taxes from a disk with data from Liechtenstein purchased in 2008, and has bought further CDs with details of tax evasion involving accounts in Switzerland.

The latest CD is at least the seventh to be offered to German authorities and Schleswig-Holstein will probably buy it, the Sueddeutsche said.

Cyrill Sele, a spokesman for Liechtensteinische Landesbank, called the report “speculation," according to Bloomberg News. Speaking by phone from the capital Vaduz, he told the agency that the bank has no information regarding a stolen CD and declined to comment further.

Stefan Mappus, the CDU prime minister of Baden- Wuerttemberg, turned down a disk offered to the state in February, saying the purchase was legally risky.

Another state, Lower Saxony, bought the disk last month, sharing the reported cost of 185,000 euros with the federal government in Berlin.

The Finance Ministry said it contained information on about 20,000 Swiss bank accounts. Lower Saxony expects to reap tax revenue from the CD in the “double-digit millions” of euros, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.