Alternate Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis told Greek Parliament on Tuesday that the time has come to crack down on tax evasion by adopting the best practices in other countries. He said, during the debate on the government’s policy statement that there are plans to follow the German model for tax inspections. Large teams of inspectors will raid offices of large, well-connected businesses. The end-of-year write-off deadline for tax evasion cases will also be extended.

Alexiadis pledged that the investigation into the Lagarde list will be completed within 2016. Priority cases are those of people and businesses linked to politics as well as media moguls. He promised that inspections will be finished in five months.

Only 481 investigations have begun from a total of 2,062 cases on the Lagarde list. Of these only 136 have been completed as there are few investigators tackling tax fraud. Now, the government will target large-scale tax evasion afresh in a huge crackdown on banking groups, businesses supplying the public sector and the media. He pointed out that the government had carried out more than 140,000 tax inspections last summer alone, compared to 22,275 in the previous year and 7,115 in 2014.

Despite the clampdown, an amnesty will be offered as a last chance to tax payers wishing to declare their capital in Greece or abroad before a wealth register is activated.