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Gas pumps in North Rhine-Westphalia
Photo: Roberto Pfeil / dpa
The chairman of the Monopolies Commission has now also got involved in the debate about a tax on excessive company profits in times of crisis and has classified such a measure as an approach worth considering.
"From an economic point of view, this approach is preferable because it does not intervene in pricing and thus receives the price scarcity signals," said Jürgen Kühling of the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" on Wednesday.
What Kühling means by "scarcity signals": The high energy prices would not be artificially lowered by such a tax on corporate profits, as would be the case with state subsidies, for example.
This would also keep the incentive for consumers to save energy.
The revenue from such a tax could then be used to finance social measures to cushion price increases, especially for poorer families, he said.
The Monopolies Commission is an independent body that advises the federal government, among others, on competition issues.
However, the so-called excess profit tax should not result in investments being choked off, particularly in renewable energies, Kuhling warned.
“Britain, for example, provides for investment allowances here.”
Ex-Commission chief disagrees
A so-called excess profit tax is currently being discussed, above all against the background of the Ukraine war, the economic consequences of which pose problems for many companies, but above all in the energy sector, but also in the armaments sector, enable significantly higher profits.
A tax of this kind is therefore only being debated for individual sectors.
Encouragement comes from the SPD and Greens, for example, but the FDP strictly rejects it.
The President of the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW), Achim Wambach, rejects an extra tax for mineral oil companies.
"I don't believe in an excess profit tax in the current situation," Wambach told the "Mannheimer Morgen".
He sees a number of problems with the implementation.
"This also removes the incentive for companies to plan well for such situations," said Wambach.
He was Kühling's predecessor as head of the Monopolies Commission.
"You have every right to maximize profits," Wambach said of the company.
"The question is whether this is being done abusively, i.e. whether they are exploiting their market power or even colluding." That in turn is a matter for the Cartel Office.
beb/dpa
