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February 10, 2012
FDP gears up for fresh tax cut battle
Published: 23 Apr 10 09:23 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100423-26735.html
The pro-business Free Democrats are planning to use their party conference Saturday to trumpet their new tax plan, even as senior members of their conservative coalition partners, the Christian Democrats, attack the proposals.
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In an interview published Friday, the party’s parliamentary leader, Birgit Homburger, vowed her liberal colleagues, many of whom are hungry for even greater tax reform, would back the recently-announced compromise plan.
“I am firmly convinced that a great majority of the party will rally around it,” she said.
The new tax plan, a slimmed-down version in recognition of Germany’s massive public debt, would deliver relief totalling €16 billion and simplify the income tax system, leaving only five tax brackets. Originally the party had wanted to deliver €24 billion in relief and have just three tax brackets.
Yet Homburger’s optimistic assessment came even as Wolfgang Böhmer, the conservative Christian Democrats Premier of Saxony-Anhalt, lashed out at the FDP plan, saying Germany couldn’t afford it.
“So long as the budget can only be financed by taking on new debt, we can’t cut taxes,” he told Handelsblatt. ''A rash tax cut at the cost of greater debt makes no sense.”
Saarland Premier Peter Müller also spoke out against the FDP proposal, particularly its plan to partly pay for the tax cuts by bringing forward the end to grants for struggling coal mining regions.
“The proposal of the FDP endangers the … long-negotiated accord of 2007, in which all parties agreed to a gradual phase out of coal mining (subsidies) until 2018,” he told Handelsblatt.
DDP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
'Pro-business' must be part of their registered name because they never get a mention on the Local without that adjective. Rather advantageous for them to get free trumpeting like this.
"Saarland Premier Peter Müller also spoke out against the FDP proposal" - simply because Saarland, the poorest hole in western Germany*), lives off Hartz IV and EU donations. There is no economic plan behind the criticism, just simple kicking and screaming at the sight of "them" taking money from "us" for not doing anything.
*) Unemployment in my village is 44%, and all those guys live off my taxes, while I cannot afford many things.