According to a report of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) has presented his European counterparts with a final bill on a financial transaction tax. As the newspaper reports, the bill initially provides for a tax on share purchases in ten EU states. Scholz now asked the European finance ministers for their final approval.
"We are now so far for the first time since 2011 that we can reach an agreement," wrote Scholz loud "Süddeutsche Zeitung" to his EU colleagues. Earlier, European finance ministers asked Scholz to come up with a bill.
Among the ten countries in which the tax is to be introduced initially, it should be next to Germany to Belgium, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia and Slovakia. A financial transaction tax has been negotiated in the EU for years.
Income for ground rent
In the direction of stock exchange tax, however, the tax on share purchases envisaged by the Federal Finance Minister is only a first step. According to the bill, buyers of shares in large companies will have to pay a tax of 0.2 percent of the goodwill. However, this only applies to shares of companies that have a value of more than one billion euros. In Germany there are 145 companies, in the ten countries a total of 500 companies.
According to the report, Scholz expects additional revenue of around 1.5 billion euros per year. This income should be used to finance the basic pension.
