Official German for: referencing to documents.
In the German financial administration there is a legendary crustacean. We are talking about the “lobster”, short for real estate and property database. It is intended to pave the way for the land registry offices to get out of the digital thicket of data chaos left behind by the property tax reform.
However, since the German authorities need up to 14 years to set up such a database, the “lobster” only exists on paper so far. So it’s good that at least a catchy name has been found for the project.
The search for cheerful names for dreary tax transactions is obviously one of the hobbies of creative tax officials. They also hide the fact that mountains of files are still often used in administration instead of digital databases. Because in a world full of cute project names, it’s hard to be mad at someone.
Lots of birds and a bush
In addition to the thieving bird “Elster” (electronic tax return), which the public is already familiar with because of its sophistry, there are other lesser-known fowl in German authorities. There are, for example, the “Rabe” (referencing to receipts) or the “Nachdigal” (subsequent submission and co-submission of digital receipts and supplementary sheets), which are intended to inspire lame taxpayers. In all probability, these birds can be found in a “gorse” (Basic Information Service Tax).
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There is already a “consensus” (coordinated new software development of the tax administration) that funny names for scanning processes, such as “Sesam-SteuBel” (scanning, archiving and machine processing of tax returns – tax document reading), at least cause great anticipation at the tax returners’ desks , if not a frenetic ecstasy. It is to be hoped that they will remain “elastic” (electronic file tax).
In financial administration, the abbreviation for electronic tax return.
But there is also a human touch in financial management. The “diva” (digital administrative act) can be found there more and more often. In rare cases, Mr. “Boris-D” (land value database) is also present. Anyone who loses track of all these abbreviations can join the “Triangle” working group. The first task of this committee is to find out what the abbreviation actually stands for.
With so much ingenuity in the financial administration, we citizens quickly forget the frustration caused by property tax returns or income surplus calculations. So it would only be fair to return the euphoria of creative abbreviations to the officials.
For example, by sending the “Almond Milk Stefe” attachment to the tax office. This stands for “finally finish my tax assessment”.
More: The German state and the lobster – The real reason for the property tax chaos