Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (VP) described the work of the financial police last year as “highly successful”. This carried out 27,000 checks throughout Austria in 2022, which resulted in penalties of 18.5 million euros being requested. Thus secure dhe financial police in Austria “fair competition and also the business location,” says Brunner.
In the labor market, the financial police checked the employment relationships of more than 50,000 employees in 2022. Around 11,000 people were illegally employed EU foreigners or third-country nationals. 5000 employees were not properly registered for social security. This would mostly be organized undeclared work. Brunner was pleased with the hit rate of around 30 percent, which shows “that the test methods are targeted and effective”.
Linz security company as “control submarine”
As a particularly brazen example, the head of the financial police, Wilfried Lehner, cited the case of a security company from the Linz area, which, as a “tax submarine” without a trade license, accumulated illegal work and social fraud. In addition, the employees received service cards “that look confusingly similar to those of the police”.
The number of illegal gaming devices continued to decline last year. In a total of 309 controls, 384 devices were secured, in 2020 there were still 1636. According to Lehner, the gaming operators would often act creatively: slot machines would be installed in aluminum cases and lent out to players.
