Increase since the corona pandemic: state refusers harass civil servants

class=”sc-29f61514-0 icZBHN”>

You pay no taxes or fines. They sign documents with blood-red fingerprints and believe that the Swiss state is a private company and that authorities therefore have no legitimacy: so-called state objectors.

Conspiracy theories were on the rise during the Corona period. The state objectors also managed to convince many people with their claims. One of their main activities: harassing the authorities.

Threats and a lot of extra effort

This is especially felt by debt enforcers. They have to collect tax debts and are often the first representatives of the state to have personal contact with state objectors. In some cantons they have increasingly large additional costs. This is evident from research by SRF.

Since, from the point of view of state objections, the authorities should not have the right to collect taxes or issue fines, these are refused. According to the SRF research, the German-speaking Swiss cantons are mainly affected, while only a few in French-speaking Switzerland are affected. Eastern Switzerland appears to be a stronghold of state refusers.

Individual offices are reaching their limits

Dealing with these people is “extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive.” Additional work is caused, for example, by ‘long discussions at the counter’ or ‘disproportionately extensive correspondence’. Often the police have to be called. Aggression, threats and attempts at intimidation have increased. In addition, some troublemakers also file complaints against individual employees of the collection agencies.

According to the cantons, small debt enforcement offices in rural areas are particularly hard hit and are quickly reaching their capacity limits.

A possible explanation for the increasing extra effort is that the state refusers appear to be acting in an increasingly organized manner. A number of websites and Telegram channels distribute pages of instructions and templates on how to tax and harass the state and especially debt enforcement agencies.

Scene experts assume it is a five-digit number

Ultimately, however, all authorities would emphasize that the state refusers would ultimately have to pay the bills and have their wages garnished. The unrest was unsuccessful, but it was time-consuming for the authorities.

According to an anonymous scene expert, the scene has multiplied, possibly even a hundredfold, during the corona pandemic. She estimates there are at least five figures who object to the state. But you shouldn’t imagine them as a large organization; they are different small groups. (dba)

Source:Blick