Resistance to push for excess profit tax

Created: 06/10/2022Updated: 06/10/2022, 17:17

Katja Hessel (FDP) speaks.

© Christoph Soeder/dpa/archive image

A push by the states of Bremen, Berlin and Thuringia for a special tax on high additional profits from companies from the Ukraine war is met with resistance - in the Bundesrat itself and in the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Such an "excess profit tax" would be the "wrong way" and "not a good idea," said Secretary of State for Finance Katja Hessel (FDP) on Friday when deliberating on the application in the state chamber.

Berlin - "Such a tax would be economically counterproductive, legally problematic and certainly not quick to implement."

The three countries want the Bundesrat to ask the federal government to submit a proposal for the temporary levying of such a tax for 2022.

The aim is to levy a tax or levy on excess profits caused by the crisis, especially in the energy sector.

State relief measures are then to be financed from the revenue.

While many people and companies were suffering from the consequences of the war, such as high inflation, and the state was taking billions in countermeasures, a few were filling their pockets, said Bremen's Prime Minister Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD).

"They earn a fortune simply because they shamelessly exploit the current situation." The four oil companies Shell, BP, Exxon and Total had their net profit in the first quarter of this year alone compared to the previous year of around 15 billion US dollars more than doubled to around 34 billion.

Thuringia's Federal and European Minister Benjamin Immanuel Hoff (left) spoke of "perversion tendencies in our economy".

According to the German constitutional order, it is "the state's right to skim off these profits through taxes".

Lower Saxony's CDU Finance Minister Reinhold Hilbers, on the other hand, called the initiative "populist" and a "little effective means".

Many questions arose.

"What is a war-related surplus and at what level can it be assumed that it will occur?

Are the possible excess profits of the armaments industry that can be expected also caused by the war?

Without a doubt.

But are they also immoral,” asked the CDU politician with a view to the amendment to the Basic Law for the special fund of 100 billion euros to upgrade the Bundeswehr, which had also been decided by the Bundesrat.

The finance and economic committees of the federal state chambers will first discuss the proposal before it is voted on in one of the next meetings.

dpa