German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/135, p. 17103.
Hearty thanks, Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
The progressive coalition discovers a new tax and the CDU naturally joins in. It is to be granted – and therefore also praised – that after lengthy negotiations an agreement has been reached, and also an international law treaty is tucked behind. To the extent one now tries to lead the work to an end. The new tax law has over a hundred paragraphs and a complexity which is as high as our presently existing income tax law. There is however one other thing which stands beside. The experts see it also. The talk is of the greatest tax project in decades. It is for the representatives of German industry and trades a fully new tax law. A citation from the hearings: The tax consulting profession speaks of a “lack of embedding in the German tax system” and of legal insecurities resulting therefrom.
Besides a minimum tax declaration at the local finance office and a minimum tax report at the Federal Central Office for Taxes, the affected businesses need to develop and operate their own controlling system so as to account for, control and evaluate the tax burdens and effective taxes of all domestic and foreign subsidiaries on the basis of local accounting guidelines, the international IFRS [International Financial Reporting Standards] regulations and the respective national tax guidelines. Moreover, the goal of a higher tax intake – which is now relativized; it was however always a quite important goal – is not achieved.
Deborah Düring
(Greens): It is certainly not about a higher tax intake!
For that, there is a study of the ifo Institute which demonstrates that nothing in that regard is forthcoming. It is therefore shifted to the aspect of an improvement of competitiveness.
The bureaucracy in Germany further increases, despite affirmations otherwise by the entire great coalition in this house. Between July 2021 and 2022, the current bureaucracy expenditure was increased by means of a new law from 6.7 billion euros to a total 17.4 billion euros; ergo, around 11 billion euros, as stated by the national norms control council; that is thus not some number from some journalist. The FDP member Herbrand expressly complained of this phenomenon in a guest contribution in the Wirtschafts Woche in these days where he speaks of a fulfillment expenditure of 44 billion euros which still needs to be added to this latest engrossment of bureaucracy.
Maximilian
Mordhorst (FDP): He is right!
The initiative for a worldwide minimum tax proceeds from the OECD, a union of 38 developed countries which feel themselves obligated to the market economy. There emerges the question whether the U.S.A. or China – this has been indicated, it is much more dramatic than was indicated – thus seriously introduces the minimum tax, as would have gladly Germany the model boy or the EU.
Maximilian
Mordhorst (FDP): That is the look in the crystal ball!
Add to this that some states even today are considering defensive measures. Thus the Americans will make tax credits. These tax credits will not lead to that they will be accounted for the minimum tax, but that is a trick so as to relativize the effects in a petty cash fund. It will come, as at the Paris climate agreement, to where only Europeans are obligated to something; others however wait awhile, and think of optimizing their individual national interests.
Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, you are today driving this country against the wall; there, holiday speeches are of little use. If we do not solve the problems of the high taxation of businesses at over 30 percent, of bearable energy costs, the education failures in primary schools to the creation of hazelnut subjects in the universities, the fading work ethic and the lack of identification with the German virtues, a sustained improvement of the situation in Germany will not enter into it. It requires a change of times, ladies and gentlemen, but a right one.
Hearty thanks.
[trans: tem]
