German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, pp. 14107-14108.
Right honorable Frau President. Valued colleagues. Dear guests in the gallery.
I first want to express my gratitude to the CDU/CSU, that they have brought this theme into plenary session. Yet the fact is that we on the Finance Committee have concerned ourselves far too little with the theme of taxes.
Some have thereby appeared to forget that without tax revenues simply nothing here could get underway: Frau Baerbock could not give away millions in foreign countries; for the EU, we would fail to be the most important payer of contributions; and even the grandiose subventions and ostensible grants, which you here in connection with the heating law wanted to distribute, would simply be impossible. Yet the heating law has, ja, just now been taken down from the daily order by the Federal Constitutional Court. I think that was a good decision.
The question is naturally: Do the citizens perceive the present tax system as just, and does the high tax burden restrict the competitiveness of our country? I find interesting in this connection a look at the tax rates in international comparison: Bulgaria, 10 percent; Hungary, nine percent; Lithuania, 15 percent; Roumania, 16 percent; Czechia and Poland, 19 percent; and Greece, 22 percent.
When one looks in comparison at who are the principal receiver countries within the EU, one sees: They are precisely the same countries which are on this list. It is thus interesting that the countries which exact the least taxes from their citizens are those receiving the most money from the EU. That means we are in principle financing the tax programs of the European countries. And that, I think, is not the purpose [Sinn] of the EU.
It is thus not to be wondered that Germany as principal payer with around 22 billion euros net has comparatively the highest tax burden. And here also, in answer to the big question, is referral to the minimum tax of 15 percent not helpful; for if you have comprehended the tax rates which I have just read out, you may see: Most already lie well nigh at or above the limit of 15 percent. Which corresponds exactly to this corporation tax which we have in Germany.
Only, what you always ignore: In Germany – which is unique in Europe – besides the corporation tax, we even pay an excise tax [Gewerbsteuer], and the excise tax of course clearly drives the total tax rate of businesses to the heights. We are then overall at around 30 percent, and that is the highest value in Europe. It especially most harshly affects the Mittelstand economy.
While France last year clearly reduced its business tax rate, we here in Germany are far distant from that. The excise tax is a foreign body in international tax comparison. If we want to reconstruct the competitiveness, we need to reform or even abolish this. I know, the excise tax is the principal source of budget income for many local governments. On that account, we of course need to find adequate instruments; for example, a higher participation of the local governments in the income tax and in the sales tax [Umsatzsteuer]. That would essentially help in local governments; for we have just seen in regards Corona that even the business tax has a high variability, and therefore the local governments have naturally met with greater difficulties.
Now of course Schlaumeier could say: Each businessman can himself freely choose whether he founds a GmbH [limited liability company] or a sole proprietorship. Right, yes. Yet a sole proprietorship of 63,000 euros income is already at the top tax rate of 42 percent, and that again in the European mean is the top value.
We thus require no continual poking around in whichever existing system; we require a unified business tax [Unternehmenssteuer], independent of legal form, which relieves especially small- and mid-sized businesses. We require a distinct increase in the basic allowance, a distinct extension of the rates table in which the top tax rate is very much later implemented, and we require, before all things, a simplification in tax law and the abolition of many special cases. Here, I gladly invite you to get underway in common with us a real business tax reform.
Many thanks.
Kay Gottschalk (AfD): A very good speech!
[trans: tem]
