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Next traffic light dispute? SPD and Greens want to ask war winners to pay - FDP rejects

2022-06-07T14:40:59.819Z


Next traffic light dispute? SPD and Greens want to ask war winners to pay - FDP rejects Created: 07/06/2022, 16:24 By: Tom Offinger The FDP around Finance Minister Christian Lindner is opposed to the creation of an excess profit tax. © Fabian Sommer In the wake of the Ukraine war, individual sectors in Germany are making above-average profits. A corresponding tax could help - but the governing


Next traffic light dispute?

SPD and Greens want to ask war winners to pay - FDP rejects

Created: 07/06/2022, 16:24

By: Tom Offinger

The FDP around Finance Minister Christian Lindner is opposed to the creation of an excess profit tax.

© Fabian Sommer

In the wake of the Ukraine war, individual sectors in Germany are making above-average profits.

A corresponding tax could help - but the governing parties disagree.

Berlin - The FDP is vehemently opposed to the introduction of a tax on excessive corporate profits in times of war and crisis.

"In Germany there is a tax on profits, but no discrimination in individual sectors," said Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) on Tuesday in Berlin.

In the case of an excess profit tax, there is a "great risk" that the opposite of what is desired will ultimately be achieved - namely an "uncontrolled inflationary spiral".

Ukraine war: Christian Lindner: "Excess profits" from the consequences of the war cannot be "confirmed"

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 also enable significantly higher profits, especially in the energy sector, but also in the armaments sector.

There is therefore a debate about such a tax only for individual sectors.

The Green MP Renate Künast named mineral oil companies.

Lindner said that additional tax burdens would "of course be priced in by the companies" and that in turn would "have an effect on the development of inflation".

What happens at the pump is also due to a development on the world market, said the FDP leader and ultimately warned of shortages.

Incidentally, he could also “not confirm” that there are “excess profits at all”.

There are no figures on the profit situation in the mineral oil industry.

There are "conjectures" - but they also exist in vaccine production and in the field of renewables, said the FDP leader.

Regarding the FDP's resistance to an excess profit tax, Künast said the problem was "that we have a coalition partner who doesn't want to raise taxes anywhere". 

Ukraine War: Excess Profit Tax?

"Can't seriously want anyone"

Last but not least, there are legal concerns about an "arbitrary tax increase for a single industry," said Lindner.

Such a levy would jeopardize legal certainty in the German tax system and jeopardize trust in the tax state, he warned.

FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr had previously

told

Bild that what sounded good was "in truth a very bad instrument".

Innovative companies such as the vaccine

manufacturer Biontech

, “which are currently making good profits and are already paying a lot of taxes”, would be asked to leave the country.

"Nobody can seriously want that."

War in Ukraine: SPD, Greens and Union for Excess Profit Tax

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil described such a tax as "very worth considering" a few days ago.

The Greens are also supportive.

Group leader Katharina Dröge said: "If the Minister of Finance is interested in skimming off excessive profits, the introduction of an excess profit tax can make sense."

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At the weekend, Union faction leader Jens Spahn (CDU) also called for the excess profits of oil companies to be taxed.

The government must "take a close look" to see whether the tank discount really means a price reduction, he told

Bild am Sonntag

.

Unjustified extra profits would have to be skimmed off with a tax.

He was "surprised that the Union is now demanding something like this," said FDP man Dürr of the

picture

.

"If we want growth, prosperity and thus increasing tax revenue, then we have to be attractive to modern companies and not drive them away." (

to mit afp

)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-06-07

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