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Federal Minister of Finance Lindner: Personally decided
Photo: IMAGO/M.
Popow / IMAGO/Metodi Popow
Politicians from the SPD and Greens criticize the behavior of Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) in the legal dispute over the solidarity surcharge.
"It would be expected that applicable federal law before the supreme finance court would not only be represented by the defendant tax office, but also by the responsible federal ministry," said SPD finance politician Michael Schrodi to the newspapers of the Funke media group on Tuesday.
"I would have wished that there was a stronger separation between party leadership and finance minister."
The Federal Fiscal Court (BFH) in Munich is negotiating in a test case on Tuesday as to whether the levying of solos since 2020 is still constitutional.
The Federal Ministry of Finance had joined the process as a secondary participant before Lindner was in office, but recently withdrew its accession.
This means that no representative of the ministry will take part in the hearing.
According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Lindner made the decision personally.
The process was "unusual," commented the Social Democrat Schrodi.
In addition, tax losses due to "sparing the top income earners" are currently not tolerable.
Soli is currently only paid by people with high incomes.
"We were surprised that Christian Lindner deviated from the previous course," said the financial policy spokeswoman for the Greens in the Bundestag, Katharina Beck, to the Funke newspapers on the ministry's withdrawal from the court proceedings.
Regardless of the court hearing and the future of the solo, the federal government cannot currently forego income, she also emphasized.
How this is ensured must be “continued to be discussed in the coalition”.
A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Finance told the newspapers that Minister Lindner was only implementing what had long been his position by deciding against his own representation in the procedure for the solidarity surcharge.
The FDP is in favor of a complete abolition of the solidarity surcharge.
mike/AFP