Collecting taxes due - by any means ?

German tax authorities again step up their effort to track down tax evaders.

Since raising revenues through taxes is a cornerstone of goverment funding all over the world you have to live in an ideologic reality sharply seperated from this world to think that tax evation is permissable.

But is it ok for tax authorities to buy information on tax evaders, information that have been stolen from the systems of banks.
Can the price be too high?


http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/07/14/germany.credit.suissse.ft/index.html?hpt=Sbin&fbid=yfJDMEg0g9T

German prosecutors on Wednesday staged raids on more than a dozen Credit Suisse offices in connection with an inquiry into whether employees of the Swiss bank had helped clients to evade taxes.
....
The inquiries have been controversial because they seem to be based on stolen information. Some authorities have refused to purchase data.
....


Was it ok for Clarice Starling to buy information from Hanibal Lecter to catch Buffalo Bill.

The question is then, do the ends justify the means? If the banks are doing something illegal, is it illegal to steal from the group that is breaking the law?

I'd say that someone who is breaking the law should not expect to have rights when it comes to anything having to do with the illegal practice. Anyone who does has their priorities all out of whack.

i'd say it's OK for the USA, EU, etc., to exclude Switzerland from the international banking system.

maybe they'd like dealing with the rest of the world through Venezuela and Cuba.

however, i doubt it gets past the Senate.