A senior German minister said yesterday that the government was planning a tax on the most advanced computer, internet and telecom equipment.

According to a report on the proposal, the tax will hit CD "burners", hard discs, modems, ISDN lines and other equipment used to copy digitalised information. The aim is to raise funds to pay for the use of intellectual property.

As such, it represents a contribution to the debate sparked off by attempts in the US to curb MP3 sites like Napster.

But it will also revive the debate on Germany's will to modernise, and it raises more questions than it answered.

Representatives of the information technology industry in Germany said it would be a tax on progress.

Jörg Menno Harms, of Bitkom, which represents the German new media industries, told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung: "In no other country in the world would consideration be given to such a wide-ranging regulation."

The paper said the industry reckoned that the tax could add up to 30% to the cost of the equipment affected.

The justice minister in Gerhard Schröder's centre-left cabinet, Herta Däubler-Gmelin, insisted in a statement that the rate would not be punitively high.

But she said: "We have to find ways for authors, journalists, musicians and others engaged in creative activity to receive an appropriate return."

Germany also imposes similar levies on equipment whose main function is copying, including scanners, photocopiers and fax machines. The rate varies according to the capacity of the machine, from DM75 up to DM600 (£25 to £90) an item.

The proceeds are paid by the manufacturers to companies which specialise in collecting royalties on intellectual property, which pass the fees on to clients such as authors, composers and screenplay and software writers.

"Everyone who buys a tape recorder already unwittingly pays a tax which, incidentally, is low," Ms Däubler-Gmelin said.

"The cost of bringing modern media within the scope of the compensation act by changes to the law will not over-burden the consumer to the extent that representatives of the interest parties have claimed. The inclusion, however, is needed, to protect intellectual property."

Berliner Zeitung said that since the tax would only be payable when the products were bought in Germany, there were fears that it could prompt hi-tech firms to flee the country or sell their products from abroad by mail order.