Germany will on Tuesday call for the European Union to clamp down on the continent’s last tax havens, whose low taxes and bank secrecy rules it sees as an incitement to tax evasion.

Peer Steinbrück, finance minister, will use a meeting with his European counterparts to rally support for tougher EU rules that would force Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra and Switzerland to co-operate fully with tax authorities in neighbouring countries.

Berlin estimates the cost of tax evasion to public coffers at €30bn ($46bn) a year. German prosecutors are investigating at least 600 holders of anonymous trusts in Liechtenstein.

German officials said their priority was to secure the backing of weighty allies, such as France and the UK, for new regulations against tax havens.

In the background, however, the finance ministry has been working on tougher EU rules that would force tax havens to disclose the extent of the funds held by EU residents in their banks.

The main instrument would be a beefed-up Savings Tax Directive. Since 2005, the directive has forced tax authorities to exchange information, ensuring that interest payments on bank deposits are taxed in their owners’ countries of residence.

The ministry’s draft proposal, seen by the Financial Times, included:

● An extension of the scope of the directive to cover not just interest payments on cash savings but all forms of returns on financial assets, including dividend payments and capital gains.

● Making it applicable to legal entities, targeting German taxpayers who have parked their money in trusts in Liechtenstein and elsewhere in order to circumvent the rules.

● Creating a duty for countries with strict bank secrecy rules to transfer information about the identity of bank account holders.

German officials stressed that the proposal was still a draft and that it could change before it is put to Ecofin, the council of EU finance ministers.

Daniel Truchi, the global head of Société Générale’s private banking business, said Singapore, the world’s fastest-growing private banking centre, could be the main beneficiary from the Liechtenstein probe because its bank secrecy and trust laws governing inheritance are among the tightest in the world. He said events in Liechtenstein are “like an earthquake for European private banking” because “it undermines client confidence”

Additional reporting by John Burton in Singapore