Traffic light coalition in trouble? Olaf Scholz (left) and Christian Lindner at a cabinet meeting. © John MacDougall/AFP
Christian Lindner presents a new tax estimate from Japan, of all places. The Taxpayers' Association is already exerting pressure in advance. News-Ticker.
- From Japan: Finance Minister Christian Lindner will present a new tax estimate on Thursday (11 May).
- The date is explosive: The traffic light coalition has been at loggerheads over the 2024 budget for weeks.
- This news ticker for the presentation of the spring tax estimate will be updated on an ongoing basis.
Berlin – The traffic light coalition is struggling with each other on several fronts - one of which is finances. Thursday afternoon (11 May) could provide new explosive material: Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) will present the spring tax estimate, curiously enough via an online press conference from Japan. The appointment is scheduled for 15 p.m.
Lindner's tax estimate: Association puts pressure on – "With all this money ..."
Big surprises are not expected. Yet the traffic light could use exactly that now. The refugee summit ended with billions in emergency aid from Lindner's budget for the municipalities. The financing requests from the ministries continue to sprout. And before the deadline, the Taxpayers' Association is also making a clear demand in the face of a new "record".
"Germany is one of the world's leaders in taxes and social security contributions," association president Reiner Holznagel told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. "Citizens and businesses are facing a record tax of 1000 billion euros in tax payments alone. In my opinion, with all this money, a stability-oriented fiscal policy must finally succeed again – without detours via creative debt funds and crisis inventions."
But that could be difficult. Most recently, Lindner had identified a deficit of 14 to 18 billion euros in the federal budget for 2024. "This budget gap must be generated through renunciation," he said. And this does not even take into account the billions of dollars in additional requests from the ministries, which can only be realized by further cuts elsewhere.
Lindner presents tax figures from Japan – Finance Minister delivers next excitement
Shortly before the tax estimate, Lindner caused further uproar. According to him, the draft budget for 2024, which has already been postponed once, will be even longer in coming. "June 21 no longer applies," Lindner said on the government plane to Japan. There, he will take part in a meeting of finance ministers of the G7 countries. The traffic light was politically incapable of acting, said the CDU budget politician Mathias Middelberg of the Reuters agency.
The new data will play an important role in the work on next year's federal budget. The federal budget must be significantly consolidated after massive expenditure in the Corona pandemic and to cushion the higher energy costs as a result of the Ukraine war. (fn with dpa, AFP, rtr
)