A team was formed by the tax office in North Rhine-Westphalia to track down influencers who evade taxes.
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Who is the tax office targeting? Since January 2025, the tax investigation of North Rhine-Westphalia is said to be focusing on professional influencers who do not fulfill their tax obligations. These are not “small” influencers in comparison, but larger ones who intentionally evade taxes in a criminal manner. No names have been mentioned regarding which influencers are specifically involved in the investigations.
The head of the authorities, Stephanie Thien, says (via DIE ZEIT): “It is not uncommon for an influencer to earn several tens of thousands of euros per month, but not even have a tax number.”
Some influencers are supposedly relocating their business abroad to avoid taxes.
200 criminal proceedings and 300 million euros
How does the tax office proceed? Currently, over 6,000 datasets from social media platforms are being examined by a dedicated influencer team. However, gathering evidence in such cases is complicated. Especially on Instagram, this is difficult, as stories in which collaborations are often posted disappear after 24 hours.
The unit for tax fraud investigation employs investigative methods to trace advertising collaborations and their revenues from influencers and secure corresponding evidence.
Meanwhile, 200 criminal proceedings have been opened by the State Office for Combating Financial Crime (LBF), with an estimated sum of 300 million euros believed to have been evaded by various influencers. Not only North Rhine-Westphalia but also other federal states are said to be affected.
The cases involve average shortfalls in the five-figure range. Some individual cases are also said to reach six figures.
While the tax office is focusing on influencers who deliberately evade taxes, newcomers who rise to fame overnight often do not realize that they need to set aside money for taxes and then face a huge mountain of debt: 29-year-old threatens Twitch colleagues like LetsHugo with beatings if they make unreasonable mistakes
