Most Germans will no longer have to pay a solidarity surcharge from 2021 onwards. The levy is abolished for about 90 percent of the payer, as the Bundestag decided on Thursday. Another 6.5 percent should pay him in part, the higher the income, the more. The richest 3.5 percent will continue to be fully paid. The reduction is possible because the German Unity has progressed well, said Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) in Berlin. The substantial reduction is "also a sign of the success of growing together in Germany".
The soli had been introduced as a special tax, especially for the construction of East Germany after the fall of the Wall (for all taxpayers throughout Germany). It amounts to 5.5 percent of the corporation and income tax and earned the state 18.9 billion euros last year. Due to the partial dismantling of the federal government from 2021 takes about 10.9 billion euros less.
From which income in the future Soli is due, one can say only roughly, since there are different tax rates for income tax, for example, for children or married couples. According to the Ministry of Finance, a family with two children will be fully relieved of the burden of up to a gross annual salary of 151,000 euros, singles up to a gross annual salary of around 73,000 euros. Especially middle-income taxpayers benefit.
"Biggest tax relief for years"
The CDU deputy Olav Gutting spoke in the debate of the "largest tax relief for many, many years". The cancellation takes place without any counter-financing, it is not increased hidden elsewhere. However, in the Union's view, partial abolition is only a first step towards a complete abolition of the solidarity surcharge in the next legislative period. This is a question of political credibility. "The coalition partner must also face that question," Gutting said.
Scholz defended that the top earners must continue to pay. Relief from high incomes would not be fair, he said. Taxpayers with high and very high incomes would have to contribute to public tasks being financed. A total abolition, even for the highest-earning ten percent of the population would cost an additional nearly eleven billion euros, according to the Ministry of Finance.
The SPD representative Wiebke Esdar said top earners such as top managers would not be relieved. VW boss Herbert Diess earned 127 times as much as the VW employees. By contrast, professional groups such as roofers, gardeners, nurses, bus drivers and educators profited from the far-reaching elimination of the law: "It is a law for the many, not for the few."
Criticism of the opposition
The AfD politician Stefan Keuter, however, said that he could only encourage every citizen to complain about it. The solos must be eliminated for everyone. His group colleague Kay Gottschalk spoke of a "hidden property tax". FDP faction vice Christian Dürr criticized that the middle class would not be relieved - and in an economic downturn. Instead, the Union is doing everything to ensure that Scholz becomes SPD chairman.
The Greens and the Left criticized that many of them would have nothing at all about the far-reaching elimination of the Soli because they earned so little that they did not pay the Soli at all. The wardrobe women in the Bundestag bring the discharge nothing. The Green politician Lisa Paus demanded that the partial abolition of the Solis must be combined with a reform of income tax and a higher top tax rate.
