Sorry, but I cannot leave this so misleading here. In an account inquiry, you only see who opened the account, when it was opened and possibly closed, and who has authorizations. You do not get any insight into the account balance or transactions. The claim that the tax office or other authorities could look at the account at any time is simply false.
Of course your neighbor at the tax office does not look at how much you have in your account or whether you receive Hartz IV. I wrote "in case of
legitimate interest":
Account Inquiry Procedure On April 1, 2005, the "Law to Promote Tax Honesty" came into effect. Since then, the account inquiry can be carried out in certain procedures for
evidence collection. The purpose of the law is to ensure uniform, fair taxation of all citizens. Furthermore, the account inquiry serves, among other things, to combat money laundering and terrorism financing as well as abuse of social benefits and to support the enforcement of public-law and private-law claims. The automated retrieval of account information is regulated in § 24c KWG in conjunction with § 93 paragraphs 7 to 10 as well as § 93b AO. Further regulations are contained in the application decree to the Fiscal Code (AEAO) for § 93. From paragraph 93 B: (2) The Federal Central Tax Office may, in the cases of § 93 paragraphs 7 and 8, upon request, retrieve individual data from the data systems maintained according to paragraphs 1 and 1a from credit institutions by automated means and transmit them to the requester. The identification number according to § 139b of an authorized person or a beneficial owner may only be disclosed by the Federal Central Tax Office to tax authorities. (3) The responsibility for the admissibility of data retrieval and data transmission lies with the requester. Everything is verifiable. And it's not bad at all if you are an honest person. Banks also regularly send the general terms and conditions; I am sure hardly anyone reads them.