People have started to talk about the possibility that the Constitutional Court system will toss the Solidarity tax code...going back to 2020. The odds? I've watched three finance guys since yesterday discuss it, and they suggest it's three-quarters 'chance' that it's dissolved. So the big question in this scenario?
When the SPD-coalition changed the wording/text in 2020....there's been tens of billions of Euro collected, and if the court says it was wrong....the question is....do you force the coalition to repay the tens of billions, or do you just wipe the past out?
Does the SPD-coalition have the tens of billions? No. It's already spent.
The court might say....here's a two-year period to repay the money (probably with interest)....but that would trigger a massive discussion over how you tax the general public.....to pay this bill.
Could you dissolve this mess, and just wipe out the tens of billions? Yeah....but that would trigger more legal stuff in court.
The victims here? Well....the ultra-rich are the primary folks who paid the Solidary tax.
The timing of this now.....with the collapse of the coalition? Well....yeah, this is a odd timing situation...making the SPD look crappy.
So you might want to view things over the next week as this decision is handed down.
3 comments:
Helmut Kohl said the money we paid into the Solidarity Tax would be paid back. I don't see that happening. No joke, I heard him say this in a speech shortly before it was implemented.
On BS-chatter....Kohl said a lot of stuff and you might as well delete your memory of his era. About six years after the wall came down....my wife and I drove across the 'border', into eastern Germany (to Erufurt). It was like some 3rd world area, with renovation just starting up. Tons of billions of Euro flowed each year and made a difference. Four years ago, we drove into Dresden for a week. Lot of improvements, but if you drove 5 km outside of town....it still looked like 1950s Germany.
I agree on Kohl's logic....they had to do something. But to say the tax would never end? Makes no sense.
I was stationed on the border when it opened. (11th Cavalry) When it opened, a friend and traveled a few miles into the former east and it did look rather pitiful. We felt sorry for the people who had to endure.
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