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9-euro ticket thanks to excess profit tax? "Shot Will Backfire"

2022-08-09T03:45:01.236Z


9-euro ticket thanks to excess profit tax? "Shot Will Backfire" Created: 2022-08-09 05:41 By: Andreas Schmid SPD leader Lars Klingbeil (l) wants to finance a successor to the 9-euro ticket with an excess profit tax. FDP politician Stephan Thomae rejects this in an interview with our editors. © Fabian Sommer/Jörg Carstensen/dpa/picture alliance (montage) SPD and Greens are looking for a success


9-euro ticket thanks to excess profit tax?

"Shot Will Backfire"

Created: 2022-08-09 05:41

By: Andreas Schmid

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil (l) wants to finance a successor to the 9-euro ticket with an excess profit tax.

FDP politician Stephan Thomae rejects this in an interview with our editors.

© Fabian Sommer/Jörg Carstensen/dpa/picture alliance (montage)

SPD and Greens are looking for a successor to the 9-euro ticket, the FDP is slowing down.

She finds a current proposal by party leader Klingbeil “not fair”.

Berlin – The 9-euro ticket is in the final spurt.

At the end of August, reduced fares on buses and trains will end.

Actually.

SPD and Greens want to keep the ticket, the FDP is against it.

The main point of contention is the financing: while the Greens want to delete the company car privilege, the SPD is now demanding an excess profit tax.

The FDP is skeptical, as the parliamentary manager, Stephan Thomae, explains.

9-euro ticket: Klingbeil wants to finance succession with excess profit tax

SPD boss Lars Klingbeil would like to keep the 9-euro ticket.

"We have just seen that it makes sense that it is assumed that the citizens also want the extension," said Klingbeil in the morning on the radio station NDR Info.

At the same time, the party leader spoke out clearly in favor of an excess profit tax.

This can also be used to promote the financing of a successor model.

The excess profit tax is intended for companies that profit from the current crisis surrounding the Ukraine war without making any contributions themselves.

In Great Britain, for example, oil and gas companies must temporarily pay 25 percent tax on their additional profits.

In the traffic light coalition, the Greens are also in favor of an additional tax, while the FDP rejects it.

Excess profit tax for a 9-euro ticket?

FDP: "The shot will backfire"

Allgäu member of the Bundestag Stephan Thomae speaks out against an excess profit tax.

"Even to define what an excess profit should actually be and where the boundary between profit and excess profit should run seems bureaucratic and arbitrary to me," he says to

Merkur.de

from IPPEN.MEDIA.

Higher taxes would also “almost always” lead to higher prices and more inflation.

"In the end, consumers pay the bill," especially low and average earners.

The excess profit tax is therefore "not a suitable instrument" for financing a reduced train ticket.

"The shot will backfire."

Stephan Thomae is Parliamentary Secretary of the FDP parliamentary group.

In the Bundestag elections, the native of Kempten was elected to the Bundestag via the Bavarian state list.

He has been sitting in it since 2017.

© Frederic Kern/Imago Images

Thomae also describes the 9-euro ticket as a "very successful measure", but only to relieve people in the short term and to focus on the use of local public transport.

"However, this measure was limited in time from the start." If the 9-euro ticket were extended indefinitely, "that would mean that families in the country would use their taxes to permanently help finance the subways and suburban trains in the big cities and metropolitan areas ' says Thomas.

"It's not fair."

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A “permanent improvement of the neglected public transport” is needed.

But that can only be achieved with comprehensive reforms.

In the Ministry of Transport, Volker Wissing is currently an FDP politician in the executive chair, but according to Thomae it is also the turn of the federal states.

"It would be important to develop a fare system that is valid throughout Germany for all local transport networks in Germany in the long term, but which is also financially sustainable in the long term." An excess profit tax is not an option for financing for the FDP.

About IPPEN.MEDIA

The IPPEN.MEDIA network is one of the largest online publishers in Germany.

At the locations in Berlin, Hamburg/Bremen, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart and Vienna, journalists from our central editorial office research and publish for more than 50 news offers.

These include brands such as Merkur.de, FR.de and BuzzFeed Germany.

Our news, interviews, analyzes and comments reach more than 5 million people in Germany every day.

9-euro ticket: Lindner sticks to the veto – Thomae against the Green proposal

The Free Democrats are skeptical about a successor model anyway.

Party leader Christian Lindner rejected federal funding.

"There are no funds available in the financial planning for a continuation of the 9-euro ticket," Lindner told the

Augsburger Allgemeine

on Monday.

He is not convinced of a "free mentality à la unconditional basic income" in local public transport either.

"Every euro would have to be mobilized elsewhere through cuts."

However, the SPD and the Greens insist on another reduced ticket.

The Greens presented a draft on the weekend.

The core demands: 29 euros for a regional ticket, 49 euros for the federal ticket.

The eco-party wants to finance it by abolishing the company car privilege.

Thomae doesn't think this idea makes sense.

“Privilege sounds like unjust enrichment for the upper income bracket.

In fact, the company car allowance serves to relieve bureaucracy.” With the company car privilege, companies can deduct the costs for the company car from their taxes.

The use of the company car is sometimes almost free of charge.

Thomae describes the abolition as “an indirect additional tax burden and an increase in bureaucracy.

We actually wanted to avoid both.” Just like a continuation of the 9-euro ticket through excess profit tax.

(as)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-08-09

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