Kay Gottschalk, April 12, 2024, Tax Relief

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/164, pp. 21103-21104. 

Right honorable Frau President. Dear colleagues. Dear taxpayers in the gallery. 

            Katharina Beck (SPD): We’re taxpayers , too! 

And before all things: Dear tax kleptomaniacs – it cannot be otherwise said – of the Debts Coalition! 

I want to again help you on the point upon which we speak here today. We are speaking on that the minimum livelihood be made tax free. This besides results from the ability to pay [Leisitungsfähigkeit] principle. Okay, that is difficult for the Greens, – it cannot be quite comprehended there – yet for the SPD meanwhile also. 

I want to help you with the point of what the Constitutional Court said. We have today spoken so much of human dignity. The Constitutional Court actually derives this principle from the human  dignity. I cite with the permission of the president: 

It is accordingly not only not sensible when the state first takes from the citizen as tax a portion of his minimum livelihood, and afterwards returns the money to him in the form of support payments 

– as for example in the form of social assistance, housing money and many other things. It is besides a principle which this Debts Coalition manages for years: To take money away from people so as to refund to them a small portion. No, the Constitutional Court further states that, as a result of such proceedings, people who actually were in the condition to live independently were forced into the position of a supplicant to state offices. That reveals precisely your policy, my dear friends of the Debts Ampel. 

Yet let us come to the sobering numbers. Here, even the CDU has slumbered; the press here assembled has slumbered. The scandal of the Bürgergeld [citizens’ wage] increase on Januuary 1 of 12.1 percent, namely from 502 euros to 563 euros, occurred already on 1 January 2023. You of course then increased the basic allowance by merely 5.4 percent, while with the Bürgergeld introduction you just raised the old social assistance contribution from 449 euros to 502 euros; that is 11.8 percent. Reckoned as a basis percentage, you increased the Bürgergeld in not 15 months by around 25 percent. 

            Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn (Greens): That is falsified. That’s not right!                                 That is wrong!

And in regards the basic allowance, you have not managed an increase of 12 percent. That reveals you for what you are. To that I say: Phooey, that’s shameful, what you are doing! 

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Na, na, na! Slow down!

 For nights, so to say, I checked that with the calculator and it certainly wasn’t difficult. You now hopefully have noted what we here demand – and Herr Lindner now partially, quite timidly – is only a drop on the hot stone. 

So as to support the same with facts, dear taxpayers up there: 

            (The speaker holds up a diagram)

From one euro – this is from the Taxpayers Union – remains 47.5 euros cents. 

            Vice-president Aydan Özoğuz: Herr member, in that regard, we have…

Print this!

             (The microphone is disconnected) 

            Herr member, I am speaking with you. 

            (Member Kay Gottschalk (AfD) continues to speak) 

            Herr member, is it then so difficult to pause for a second? 

But of course! 

I am simply attempting to bring to your attention that we here have an understanding to display no drawings and pictures. 

This is no picture. This is a graphic. 

            It was a graphic. Yet please refrain therefrom. 

Good. I do so in the future. Thank you for the reference. My party since 2019 has here brought in multiple motions and draft laws and therein demanded increasing the basic allowance, or to introduce the tax schedule on wheels [Tarif auf Rädern] which is even in some of the elections programs of parties which have been present here. You have refused all of this with threadbare reasonings and prefer to increase the Bürgergeld in the last 13 months by 25 percent. 

Your learning curve – it can, I believe, be stated – actually approaches asymptomatically the zero line. I hope that the voters at the next elections will correspondingly prepare a bill and make the X by the party which is really committed to the people who are working. 

On our motion [Drucksache 20/10975] is the program name: “Observe the Wage Difference Rule [Lohnabstandsgebot] – Relieve Wage-earners and Mittelstand”, and the basic allowance in fact clearly increase – I believe I’ve made clear why it must be – to 14,000 euros. It needs be said: Herr Lindner has a bad conscience, you not. He undertook a small project and wanted tax relief in the future for foreign employees in the first three years. At least he recognized: For real skilled labor, how I would define it, Germany is quite unattractive. Yet this also applies for the home employees, ladies and gentlemen of the FDP. Perhaps be honest for once! 

Herr Fuerst supports the whole, in which is stated in his study – I cite with permission of the President: "Who works full-time not always has more therefrom”, especially the people who earn between 4,000 euros and 5,500 euros and live in large cities; since then basic supplements and other supplements come to nothing. He calculated: When a labor force under this government changes from part-time to full-time, then it has 32 euros more. 

You thus see: Only one party here in the German Bundestag is really committed for the people. We stand for that working people do not meanwhile become supplicants of a socialist state, ladies and gentlemen. 

I am grateful for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Kay Gottschalk, July 11, 2023, Cum-Ex

AfD Kompakt, July 11, 2023. 

The transparent and comprehensive investigation of the Wirecard scandal is of great importance. Nevertheless, this presents merely a drop on the hot stone in relation to the explosive tax scandal of 2020. Since the citizens’ trust in the state of law is shaken to the limit and not only due to the latest scandals of the so-called “progressive coalition” of SPD, FDP and Greens. What is more, investigating committees were rejected for the clarification of the attacks on “Nordstream” as well as the Cum-Ex scandals. A motion for the appointment of a “Cum-Ex” investigating committee will again be brought in and decided, presumably in the middle of September. The Ampel’s postponement is the to highest degree alarming, since an appointment before the summer pause would have led to that already possible evidentiary motions are able to be presented so as to summon possible witnesses in September. Investigating committees are the sharpest “sword of the Opposition” and are not allowed to be blunted so as to perhaps destroy possible evidence. 

 

[trans: tem]

Kay Gottschalk, June 23, 2023, Local Banking and Banking Union

German Bundestag, June 23, 2023, Plenarprotokoll 20/113, p. 13908. 

Right honorable President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

Right honorable colleague Müller, we here in fact are in conformity in many things – that is good so. Yet I cannot here understand the optimism of colleague Oehl in so far as on the delegation trip – on May 31, I saw no one from the SPD there – your colleagues in the European Parliament said something entirely different.   

I believe, we all here have learned, that on the altar of political desire lofty principles have quite often been sacrificed. On that account, it is good that we with you submit a motion [Drucksache 20/7355] – our motion is of course better than that of the CDU/CSU, yet not a word was mentioned. Savings accounts in fact provide for the Mittelstand and for the regional economy at hand. Yet there exists in the area – and that is good so – relatively strong, affiliated networks so that you, ladies and gentlemen in the galleries, certainly still have corresponding, interested partners on site in credit matters, yet also in other financial business.    

The savings bank association, the public and Raffeisen banks as well as the cooperative banks, distinguish themselves throughout – that is little mentioned here – in that they have at their disposal paid-up deposit guaranty funds beyond that of the so-called institute guaranty system, IPS, so that in fact all deposits, ladies and gentlemen in the galleries, even the deposits not legally covered, have been insured, and that is a distinct difference to many other European financial centers. 

The EU Commission now puts forward the so-called CMDI statutory initiative with which they pursue many sub-topics. In the system proposed by the statutory initiative, it would thereby lead to that there would be an accelerated liquidation [beschleunigte Abwicklung] of the banks – as it is now – and thereby the IPS, the institutions’ internal guaranty, would no longer take effect, ladies and gentlemen. We therefore demand of you, like the banking associations – the Italian, the Polish and also the Spanish associations do so – to take up a clear positioning so as to maintain this functional capability.   

Right honorable colleagues of the CDU, well meant – and what you pass over in silence here – is frequently badly done, especially when it comes from the Commission. The question thus presents itself, how well is meant the financial center of Germany by the Commission President by the name of Frau von der Leyen who comes from the CDU? It was also mentioned in this place; since by means of the existing proposal – I have plainly said it – the well-earned strengths of our guaranty network, certainly for the small and mid-sized banks and at the cost of the regional financial economic stability – it needs be said so brutally – would be flattened to a European level [europäisch eingeebnet], ladies and gentlemen. 

Here one may in fact – in so far as both our motions are reasonable – overhear that the EU Commission directly and obtrusively points to that, even if the statutory proposal does not contain it, it is held to be urgently necessary and considered as a best solution, that the deposit guaranty funds, which plainly by all standards have been well fulfilled, which for our savers and investors is good, are to be communitarized [zu vergemeinschaften] and thereby is finally to be completed the banking union. In this purpose, ladies and gentlemen of the debts coalition, you are now for once united, and you should show your colors. 

To communitarize the deposit guaranty system at this moment, as is gladly desired by the Commission, – permit the comparison – would be like enrolling in a fire insurance which is on the brink of bankruptcy – for some states, that is certainly so – because, in regards other customers, uncontrolled smolderings already burn in the balances and the central fire department – here, the ECB – we have again and again spoken of the European Budget Authority’s report – refuses to introduce measures to extinguish.     

            Filiz Polat (Greens): How can one as a Social Democrat change to the AfD?

That is of course concretely the other background why we need to speak of this motion. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Come please to an end. 

I come to a conclusion. The AfD delegation therefore demands of Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner – he is unfortunately not here – to let acts follow his words and to secure the functional capability of the IPS 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague.

and to prevent the communitarization of the deposit guaranty funds. 

Many thanks.

  

[trans: tem]

Kay Gottschalk, April 8, 2022, Tax Relief

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/29, pp. 2563-2564.

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Before all things in this place: Esteemed citizens and taxpayers.

Today we speak in a first reading on the so-called tax relief act. Dear Ampel men and women – self-evidently – we truly welcome that you slowly arrive at reality and, due to inflation, get underway relief for the citizens. We of the AfD for very long already demand this; this, however, you have steadily refused to do.

We should nevertheless remain with the truth: One of the measures which you here extol as relief, namely the increase of the basic allowance, was and is nothing other than the exemption of the income tax subsistence minimum. It is thus money which you have previously taken from the citizens with your failed energy and tax policy, ladies and gentlemen.

Since we yesterday and in recent days have seen that for you it has nothing to do with legality and statute, I want, with the permission of the President, to cite from the November 10, 1998, conclusion of the Federal Constitutional Court’s Second Senate, which you hopefully still heed. There it is stated: 

The income tax subsistence minimum is for all those obligated to pay taxes – independent of their individual tax bracket – completely exempt from the income tax.

What you are thus doing here is statute and legality, and not relief of the citizens. You give back to them what you have taken from them by means of an inflation caused by you, ladies and gentlemen.

If we are concerned with the basic allowance: In a draft law, you make an accounting of how you arrive at your value of 10,347 euros. This is 3 percent; colleague Güntzler said it. You meanwhile perform this relief at an inflation rate of 7.4 percent. We thereby know today – summed up – that you call something “relief” – which you need to do – and this relief – and you know this – is much too little and you thereby in the end do not at all fulfill the guiding principle of the Federal Constitutional Court. I call that a violation of the law.

Well intended is not always well done; that pertains primarily to Social Democrats. We will in this regard bring in a motion to amend so as to improve. You clearly need to increase the basic allowance. We will put into play a proposal for at least 12,000 euros.

Similarly, ladies and gentlemen, the increase put forward for the commuting allowance: The fuel prices in comparison have increased around 70 cents or more. It besides can certainly do one good – yet I believe this is an ideological libel, and therefore you do not do this – to look it up at the ADAC [General German Automobile Club]. Here we read of a price increase of almost 50 percent. And, for that, the commuting allowance – dear citizens, listen to this one – will be increased not even a tenth, and indeed from the 21^stkilometer. That is labeling fraud. I say “phooey” to that which you have left over for the people who commute and who each day toil at work in your decrepit infrastructure, ladies and gentlemen.

Not least – I cannot spare you; since for me it is pleasant – Fritz Güntzler, dear Union, you have arrived in the opposition.

            Fritz Güntzler (CDU/CSU): Just recently.

Fine! Congratulations! Personally, I can profit plenty from your motion. And you know why. Especially in regards point 5, I must in fact be pleased. On the theme of ‘cold progression”, we are obviously approaching. It is nice that you finally perceive this, especially as it applies to the adjustable rate [Tarif an Rädern], which we will again bring in until you react accordingly and now slowly, like yesterday, arrive at the AfD line.

Yet to do something in the long-term against the unexpectedly high inflation, we should not only finally index the real rate of the income tax. We will in the next weeks also propose to put forward automatic adjustments corresponding to the inflation; since you cannot do it, ladies and gentlemen of the Ampel. Here, there is talk of allowances, allowance limits and lump-sum allowances. You have plainly said it, Herr Lindner: Here, for eleven years, nothing has happened. You were besides once in the government and were then justifiably thrown out; that I also prognosticate for you at the next Federal election. In any case, here we need to proceed to an automatic indexing.

The best for last: Herr Mordhorst – I know not whether he is present – you said, the real rate adjustment and the adjustable rate would not work. Keyword: “Spin-out”. Here I recommend a very good mathematical treatment – of which perhaps some here in house are still capable – and in fact a simulation by Hans-Georg Petersen who has come to the result that a fair relief is only to be guaranteed when correspondingly a systematic indexing is undertaken.

We will critically and fairly accompany you through the consultations. We are therein glad, especially because the CDU/CSU – I can only repeat myself – has arrived in the opposition. Congratulations!

            Thorsten Frei (CDU/CSU): Yet no one disputes that!

Thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kay Gottschalk, March 4, 2021, Wirecard

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/215, p. 27106.

Right honorable Herr President. Honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Honorable preceding speaker Frau Ryglewski, the Wirecard affair does not fall from heaven and we for very long discuss the BaFin [Federal Finance Office] and its dis-functionality. I am delighted that the Wirecard investigating committee – I am grateful to all of my colleagues – by means of its pressure and its clarification work has contributed so that now the coalition finally acts. Since, I believe, the matter of the BaFin has been discernible for four years in the hearings, ladies and gentlemen.

Yet it is not only about the legal regulation. We have associated with a very good draft law. What is to become much more clear – which extends to all members of the government, which concerns all the Ministers, the APAS [annual audit reports supervision], the Economics Ministry and the Finance Ministry – is the corporate governance and, before all things, the compliance. Which in the BaFin – as you have said –was gambled, since no corresponding rules catalog was  set forth. Someone from the APAS – independent, but settled in the Economics Ministry at the BAFA [Federal Office of Economic Affairs and Export Control] – has Wirecard AG shares and shall supervise all of that.

Ladies and gentlemen, we similarly need to introduce for auditors and for government entities like the Economics Ministry and all other downstream, business-area authorities, a new compliance, a critical basic attitude. When we do not do this, then many laws are wastepaper and come to nothing.

I hear for example in reference to money laundering – which we also need to go into – that here there is once again a gap between Niederbayern and the BaFin. And here it is again the BaFin. If there is a regulatory gap in the laws, then it is always the government which is guilty, which has brought in the law; since they have bungled it by hand and not acted correctly or not worked free of error. And it also must be said of what the government brought about in 2005 or 2006 – that was then already the Merkel government: People, you have worked with dirty hands.  

With the so-called financial market integrity strengthening law, Herr Scholz now attempts – this also needs to be plainly said – to, first of all, win back political trust. Since the trust of the investor, the market and the people who invest, will not be rebuilt by means of a draft law alone. We need to fundamentally enter into this problem; and the AfD will constructively participate in that. We have correspondingly put forward a draft law [Drucksache 19/27023] – mark well, a draft law, not only a motion.

I want to forestall some things. We of the AfD do not throw out the baby with the bath water, but want the auditors’ liability limit – this, according to the HGB [German commercial code], had been limited to 4 million euros – fixed at 1 percent of the balance sheet total of the auditing firm, but at a minimum of 10 million euros. The government, especially the SPD, wants 20 million euros, if possible, apparently 40 million euros – I do not know – yet in any case to attach quite high totals in the penalty catalogue. I do not believe it leads to better auditing and audit results if we turn up the penalties. Yet they need to be appreciable and they should be oriented – this is always reasonable – to which year’s turnover that the auditing firm actually makes.

Further, we have a proposal for rotation; I can here already imagine that one or the other groans. It must this time be presented: For 24 years might EY [Ernst & Young] have been able to fully audit and test Wirecard. That it previously did not once come to that, that this is a bit long, is not disclosed to me. We say here quite clearly – since there indeed is criticism, yet what is worth doing – . No, at any time it shall be four years. You now want to take ten years. Four years are appropriate. I do not want a doctor who says he needs one, two years before he can do a heart operation or until he can take out an appendix. No, I believe I can today expect from good business auditing companies that when they audit a firm, they correspondingly follow up immediately with their audit report.

All in all, my delegation nevertheless welcomes that the coalition here very quickly reacts to the concerns of our investigating committee. We will critically accompany this. We…hope that a case like Wirecard in fact never again occurs, in the interest of savers, pensioners and, before all things, Germany as a financial center and thereby the employees. Since Wirecard has cost workplaces.

 

[trans: tem]