ONCE a year Volker Schilling takes a break from his job as a software consultant to fill in his tax form with the help of a book he calls his “red bible”, a thick tome running to more than 4,000 pages detailing the ins and outs of the country’s Byzantine fiscal laws.

The annual ordeal suffered by Schilling and millions of German taxpayers could become considerably less painful if Angela Merkel, leader of the opposition Christian Democrat party (CDU), wins next month’s election.

The issue has been catapulted to the forefront of the campaign after the appointment last week by Merkel to her campaign team of a university professsor with radical ideas about tax reform.

Paul Kirchhof, 62, seen by Merkel as a future finance minister, has called for the sweeping away of the country’s myriad allowances and multiple tax bands and their replacement by a single flat levy of just 25%. Similar schemes are widely credited with having kickstarted the economies of several of the former communist countries of eastern Europe.

“Instead of needing 12 Saturdays to fill out a tax return, the new system would need just 10 minutes,” he declared. “I want to give voters back their freedom by letting them decide what to do with their money.”

Such sentiments are music to Schilling’s ears. “I never believed anything would persuade me to vote for the Christian Democrats,” he said. “But if Merkel has really found a way to end this torture then I’m for her.”

Whether Kirchhof will have a chance to implement his plans remains to be seen. While economists have hailed the proposal as certain to boost the economy, it has provoked disquiet among several leading members of the CDU, alarmed at its radical nature.

By last night Merkel, too, appeared to be having second thoughts, indicating in a television interview that it would not necessarily be part of government policy. For his part, however, Kirchhof was sticking to his guns, promising a major tax reform in 2007.

Merkel certainly needs an answer for unemployment, which remains stubbornly close to 5m. An initial proposal to reduce the dole queues by cutting non-wage labour costs and financing the shortfall by raising Vat went down badly with voters.

Whatever its ultimate fate, the proposal has emerged at a critical moment in Merkel’s campaign. Although the CDU enjoyed record ratings after choosing the former physicist as its candidate in May, that support has slumped by three percentage points in the polls to 42% over the past two weeks, while backing for Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor, has risen three points to 29%.

Taking into account Germany’s complicated electoral arithmetic, this should still be just enough for Merkel to form a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats, her preferred partner.

Yet Schröder, a consummate campaigner, looks certain to claw back more ground in the last weeks before the poll, which could leave Merkel facing the unpalatable prospect of forming a so-called “grand coalition” with his Social Democrats. When such a combination was last tried in the late 1960s, it was seen to have led to political deadlock that drove disgruntled voters to the extreme right.

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