Back thirty years ago, after the Wall came down....Chancellor Kohl proposed a Solidarity Tax, which would help fund all of these marvelous projects to rebuild East Germany. It was constructed in a way that the folks at the bottom of the wealth class....paid next to nothing, and those who made real money were the chief supporters of this pot of money.
What'd equal per year? Roughly 18-billion Euro. You can do the math, but over the thirty year period, they basically had almost 600-billion Euro to construct or build everything in eastern Germany.
The curious thing is that Kohl constructed the tax with a 'end-point'. In 2021, it's supposed to end. Both parties (CDU and SPD) say it will end (at present).
If you go around and ask most regular Germans, they don't believe the chatter. They suggest the tax will continue on. Returning the 18-billion to regular Germans? Well.....it would be curious how people react if they do get the money back. Will they go and readily spend it?
How you figure your rate? It's written up as a 5.5-percent tax (roughly) of your income tax added on. If you do the numbers on the average middle class guy in the middle-income level....it'll end up being near 350 Euro a year for the tax. For managers, with a better income? Maybe up to 1,000 Euro.
So when you hear chatter on the Solidarity Tax, and your German associate is peeved.....you can understand the way it's constructed and how it didn't really benefit anyone on the western side of Germany.
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