As of: January 29, 2024, 1:46 p.m
By: Nico Reiter
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The climate money is intended to relieve the financial burden on citizens.
Before the payment can be made, organizational and technical hurdles must be overcome.
Bremen – The chance of a bonus in the near future seemed lost.
Just a few weeks ago, Christian Lindner announced the end of climate money in the legislative period.
Now there is hope again that German citizens could receive money sooner than expected.
The Ministry of Finance signals that this could happen as early as 2025.
However, there are still some hurdles standing in the way of the project.
The traffic light coalition is currently discussing the proposed compensation again.
The carbon dioxide tax makes climate-damaging energy sources more expensive.
It applies to heating oil, natural gas, petrol and diesel and is currently 45 euros per ton of CO₂ emitted.
Parts of the income should now be paid back to the citizens through climate money.
In this way, the taxes should be more accepted and those who pay should be relieved of the financial burden.
Who receives how much?
Disagreements regarding climate money in the traffic light coalition
But according to Spiegel
, it may take a while
before the money is distributed .
The coalition partners are still discussing to whom and exactly how much money should be paid out.
The FDP advocates a classic model in which every person receives the same amount.
This means that people who heat and drive economically get more back.
The FDP would like to implement the project during this legislative period.
The SPD is also in favor of climate money, but is opposed to a capitation fee.
The money should therefore be paid out on a socially staggered basis.
The climate money could now come within the legislative period.
© Montage: Michael Kappeler/dpa/Guido Schiefer/Imago
Exactly how much citizens will receive is still unclear.
The Federal Association of Consumer Organizations has calculated how much each person could receive if the income from the CO₂ price is used.
These amount to 11.4 billion euros.
If distributed evenly, each person would receive 139 euros.
Vice-chairman of the FPD Lukas Köhler is currently talking about an amount of just under 100 euros per person.
According to the Ministry of Finance, technical hurdles in climate money will be overcome by the end of the year
But the project also faces technical hurdles.
Since there is no single body responsible for federal payments, it will be difficult to distribute the money.
The Ministry of Finance is working on a solution.
A payout channel should be in place by the end of the year.
The tax identification number should be linked to the citizens' respective account numbers.
A federal authority should then carry out the payment.
It still takes until the end of the year to clarify the final details and set up the technical side of the project.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the climate money could be paid out at the beginning of 2025.
That would be two years earlier than Lindner had announced.
If there is no agreement within the coalition by the time the payment is made, the FDP wants to make climate money an election campaign issue.
(Nico Reiter)