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Despite record income "no significant change in the budget situation" - says the Ministry of Christian Lindner
Photo: Felix Zahn / photothek / IMAGO
According to a report in the newspaper Die Welt, tax revenue from the federal, state and local governments rose to a new high in January, despite the pandemic.
Compared to January 2021, there was an increase of 22.4 percent, the newspaper reported, citing a letter from the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The two most important tax sources of the state, sales and wage tax, therefore had a significant share in the increase: there was an increase in wage tax of almost eleven percent, in sales tax even one of 48 percent.
The level of general government tax revenue was therefore higher than it had ever been at the beginning of the year.
It was given in the report for January at 57.6 billion euros, which is 10.7 billion euros more than in the previous year.
The federal government alone took in 21.9 billion euros, it said, an increase of 5.6 billion euros compared to January 2021.
Special effects due to the corona pandemic
According to “Welt”, however, the letter spoke of a “year-on-year comparison that was greatly exaggerated due to special effects”, from which “no significant change in the budgetary situation” can be seen.
She remains “extremely demanding”.
All expenditure would therefore continue to be put to the test.
Reference was made to the special features of VAT and short-time work in the previous year.
The comparative value at the beginning of last year was very low.
On the one hand, there was the temporary reduction in VAT in the second half of 2020: "The increase in sales taxes in January 2022 by 48 percent is mainly explained by the low base in 2021," according to "Welt" in the letter from the house of Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (FDP).
The VAT rates were already back to their old levels in January 2021, but since the sales tax only flows to the tax offices in the following month, the reduced rates at the time would have depressed revenue.
On the other hand, short-time work was much more widespread at the beginning of 2021 than it is now.
"At the turn of the year 2020/2021, a good 2.7 million employees were on short-time work, a year later, according to current estimates, this number was a third of that number," the newspaper quoted from the ministry letter.
sos/AFP
