[dgellow]

> (you will never see a bribe in everyday life)

That's not true, you can see lot of small bribes in normal day-to-day transactions. Almost every single technician I met (for internet installation, electricity, washing machine installation, etc. Even insurance brokers) offered me to pay them cash directly to get some benefits or falsify some recorded data.

[rob74]

Er... do you mean offering to work "off the record" without paying taxes for it ("Schwarzarbeit")? That't tax evasion, not corruption, but yeah, that's pretty common, even in Germany.

[notagoodidea]

That's interesting that in German, Dutch and French we will talk about "black work" (schwarzarbeit (DE), travail au noir (FR), zwart werk (NL)) meaning undeclared/unreported work.

I see multiple probable origins on the net : - Coming for the german "schwarzarbeit" during end of 1st, in-between or during the occupation during 2nd WW and translated in French/Dutch from there. - Patron making employees works during the evening/night during the Middle albeit work was restricted only during day time.

I did not really find authoritative sources for the origin of the expression so take that whole bag of salt.

[consp]

AFAIK you are correct. Before the first world war taxation was different in most of those countries and work was not taxed directly at all otherwise only in war years (i.e. the first world war) so the meaning is new. There was no need for a word for something which did not exist.

[dgellow]

No, I mean someone offering you to give them some cash to ignore some rules (or not report what they should), or to actually change recorded data in a way that benefits you. A clear case: insurance brokers who offer you to change some records so that you can get a private insurance in cases where you shouldn't.

[chefkoch]

I'm born here and lived here all my life and this has never happened to me.

[luckylion]

Same for the first two, but not the last. It's somewhat common for craftsmen to work "off the books" on smaller private contracts. It's a trade-off because obviously it's hard to claim liability when you have no proof they even worked on it and no contract specifying the work to be done. It's even more common in larger construction projects.

Unreported work/income is estimated at about 10% of GDP: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/20063/umfrage...

[dgellow]

That's not too surprising IMHO, I would expect this to be more visible to foreigners. I myself have never seen any type of low-level corruption in my home country but I learnt that also happens quite often, it's just not too visible if you don't know where to look at.

I'm not from Germany, and do have a foreign name, I guess that may play a role.

[chefkoch]

I wouldn't call this corruption, this sounds more like some one tried to fuck you over.

[dgellow]

I mean, accepting a bribe or offering one is a way to fuck someone over.

But it's not "you have to pay more". More like "just so you know, I have access to this internal tool, you pay me now and this thing that isn't supposed to be possible due to your situation is now done".

[Tomte]

> I would expect this to be more visible to foreigners.

That's a good point I hadn't considered.

[tormeh]

Some handymen tried to double charge me, in cash of course, but that's the only thing I've experienced. The stats say 20% of Germans report having been asked for a bribe at some point in their lives. That's not great, but not terrible either.

[nyir]

Source for the 20%? Anecdotally I've never heard anyone being asked for one, other corrupt behaviour though for sure, things regarding land ownership, or zoning violations.

[iso1631]

Most common bribes I see is when I go to some countries and I am expected to pay an undisclosed fee to get better service. My anti-bribery training mentioned how these are often quite normal, and dressed up in terms like "facilitation fee", or "tip", but that if I were to pay such a fee I'd be breaking UK law.

[galangalalgol]

Interesting! So you can't tip restaurant servers legally? Most point of sale machines for restaurants ask you to select a tip from a list of several standard optiins that usually puts 20% in the middle to make it seem normal, and like 15% is reserved as a mild complaint. So its not exactly undiaclosed, you can guess pretty well what it will be.

[iso1631]

The UK act says I (P) committe an offence if

(a)P offers, promises or gives a financial or other advantage to another person, and (b)P intends the advantage— (i)to induce a person to perform improperly a relevant function or activity, or (ii)to reward a person for the improper performance of such a function or activity.

The definition of improper broadly boils down to

> the test of what is expected is a test of what a reasonable person in the United Kingdom would expect in relation to the performance of the type of function or activity concerned.

Tipping at starbucks, or tipping a barman, or tipping a hotel member holding open a door, is certainly not what a reasonable person in the United Kingdom would expect.

"Tipping" is quite normal in the US. "Tipping" is quite normal in many African countries too. If you don't tip, you'll struggle to get any service (when you're running a project or whatever). It's a whole can of worms when normal activities in a country require a small payment.

Note also that if I tell my local project manager to make it happen, I'm on the hook for it if he "bribes" someone just as much as if I did it myself.

I'm sure the intent of the law is to prevent UK citizens from paying money to bypass bureaucracy (I had a very painful process importing some equipment at an airport once, they did not want to give me a receipt for the $1500 I wanted (and was supposed to) pay, they just wanted $50 to waive me through, or to stop me from paying an official $200k to let me build a pipe through a village, or whatever.

However it also means it's harder to make their project run smoothly in Guatemala ("Oh yes you can unload your lorry of course, this paperwork seems fine, but unfortunatly I need to check with my manager and he's currently out of town for 3 days. cough."), and means that you'll be subjected to a lengthy search at an airport (just long enough to miss your flight) for no reason unless you donate to their orphan fund or whatever.

I struggle to see the difference between that (which wouldn't be the case in the UK) and tipping a postman (which again I've never seen in the UK). The former I assume is illegal, the latter not, but it's not clear.

By enshrining English exceptionalism in UK law does seems rather off to me -- basically "treat all countries as if they were Britain, salute the Queen, and up the East India Company"

[galangalalgol]

Does it matter that the tip is given after the service insteaf of before? My kids yoga teacher has a "pay what you can or what it is worth to you" scale so disadvantaged kids can come. I think of tips kind of like that.

[iso1631]

No, it's both again induce (i.e before) and reward (i.e. after)

It comes down to the definition of "improper".

[Tomte]

You run in strange circles. I have never ever experienced such a thing. What benefits do they offer? A faster appointment?

Cash in order to avoid taxes, sure, that happens, but again: it's not common. Almost always I simply get a paper bill, without any attempt to skirt that.

[dgellow]

> You run in strange circles.

It's not about me, I live a perfectly normal, boring life. I'm not the one asking for bribes, and I always rejected them (I'm way too paranoid regarding regulations to accept that kind of stuff).