Thursday, November 14, 2019

Solidarity Tax Chatter

Back in 1990....the German Bundestag sat into motion the 'Solidarity Tax', which was to rebuild East Germany.  Billions would flow over, and this was built as a temp-tax (yeah, shocking that they did that).  They set the limit for 30 years.  So there has been a lot of chatter about this, and it's supposed to end shortly. 

But as you might figure.....the Bundestag really don't want the tax to end.

So the discussion picked up this week, that the affect of the tax on 90-percent of society.....ought to dissolve away.  In their mind, it would only be kept for businesses and 'rich' people (How rich?  They aren't saying).

Legal?  Well, they had an analyst on TV who kinda shrugged and said it'd get drawn up to the Constitutional Court, and they'd probably say on the current paperwork, it's illegal, and give the Bundestag a year or two to correct the matter (probably calling it a totally separate tax).

It basically figured up your regular income tax, and then on top of that.....5.5-percent was added.  So if you paid 1,000 Euro on income tax a year....roughly 55 Euro more was tossed the final bill. 

A big deal?  For the working class guy, I would figure 120 to 240 Euro will be coming back to him.  However, if you were a business owner and paying 100,000 Euro a year on taxes.....it would be a fair chunk of money. 

And if you were going to ask how the new group's money into the pot would be spent?  Don't bother.....there's always another opera house to be built or statue for Berlin to be bought. 

No comments: