German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/204,
pp. 25748-25749.
Thank you, Herr Vice-president. Right honorable ladies and
gentlemen.
With all respect, dear colleague Müller: I think both
realities have their justification. It cannot be said: The one pauses as long
as until the other is dealt with.
In the FDP delegation’s submitted draft law – this is in
fact an old and long enduring problem – will be demanded the overdue abolition
of the property tax. For that, the FDP submits a substantive motion with six
additional demands, of which – this I must nevertheless add – nearly all have
already been advanced by the AfD in earlier motions.
Christian Dürr (FDP): Such rubbish, Herr Glaser.
The topic of the property tax was volatile since ever and a
day because the dialectical materialists wished to thereby put to work their great
project of changing society – ever yet and still today. In addition, the lower
sentiments of envy and ill will are thereby allowed to be steadily heated. The Federal
Constitutional Court in 1995 convincingly established according to tax theory
and constitutional law that the then current property tax may no longer be
collected. Thus, what to do?
At best, what the professional tax literature has to offer
may be cited as follows:
Against the re-introduction of a recurring property tax
already speaks the undeniably thereto united inequality of evaluation which
alternative designs of a property tax also cannot avoid. Beyond that, the
Federal Constitutional Court, according to the concepts of protection of
property of Article 14, sets close limits on every property tax. After that
remains, so write the authors, for the property tax along with the income tax
only a narrow area of use. Who wishes to leave aside business assets in favor
of a limited property tax on private assets further narrows this area. The one-sided
erosion of the basis of apportionment then occurring would increase the
equality deficit and contribute to further chaos in German tax law. There is no
convincing basis of justification for the property tax. It here corresponds not
only to tax justice but also to economic reason not to re-activate the property
tax. As a sign of economic and legal rationality, the property tax should also
be repealed in law. – End of citation.
Ladies and gentlemen, the FDP motion rightly points out…that
of the 36 OECD countries, in recent times only 4 still collect a property tax.
Stefan Schmidt
(Greens): We after all also collect none!
That is the state of the art, right honorable ladies and
gentlemen, and who opposes himself to that has a few problems and will generate
many problems.
The AfD already decided this question in its 2016 principle
program. Therein is the abolition of the property tax, and we stand by that, because
as a tax on Substanz it undermines
the fundamental of our order of property in this country – and to that
naturally belongs the business world.
Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, for the solidarity
surtax, and likewise the property surtax, the AfD has repeatedly presented
motions to abolish, they being limitations of the personal use of property. Who
wants a world and a country of property owners must remove this brake on the 85
percent of the population who desire their own home. We also earlier, and
without success, demanded the dynamization of the tax allowance on savings. At that
time, the FDP did not vote for it.
The topic “ re-establishment of freedom from taxation on
declared profits from capital assets income after a holding period” is likewise
an AfD position. We are thereby for the rule in effect until 2009 – and thus
under the regime of the Grand Coalition; namely, one year, while the FDP,
clearly more modest, demands a holding period of five years.
And the requirement of consideration for complete loss in
regards commercial paper, such as the worthlessness of options – is urgently
necessary for the tax system. In a euro world in which there is no longer any interest
from government bonds, and likewise no long-term accumulation of assets is even
possible,
Vice-president Hans-Peter Friedrich: Please come to an end.
asset formation by means of shares and derivatives can
indeed also become more difficult, should nothing be done.
It would be nice – last sentence, Herr President – in the
further progress of the debate over the whole palette of these topics, to
finally grapple for once with a tax systematic and with reasoned asset policy
arguments. We of the AfD
Vice-president Hans-Peter Friedrich: It is done now.
will constructively collaborate on that, so that in the area
of fundamental tax policy something may happen which in three years in this
Bundestag has not happened.
Hearty thanks.
[trans: tem]
