Posted on 04/27/2013 5:25:33 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Members of Germany’s Green Party have backed a plan to raise income tax to 49% for people earning more than €80,000. The current rate is 42%. It has also vowed to increase tax on salaries of over €60,000 to 45%.
The party also wants to increase property tax on assets valued at over €1 million to 1.5%. It estimates that the measures will bring €100 billion into the state kitty, which it says it plans to spend on education, childcare, environmental projects and reducing debt.
Also included in the proposal is the eventual scrapping of marital tax benefits and the immediate capping of advantages for married couples.
The Greens have also pledged to increase tax-free income from €8130 to €8700 to ease the burden on medium and low-earners. Party co-leader Cem Özdemir said the decisions were a “clear message of relief for 70% of the population.”
Planned tax increases threatened to become a divisive issue for the party after Baden-Württemberg state premier Winfried Kretschmann criticized the proposals in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Friday. "I consider too great a tax burden to be problematic. I don't think you can raise two taxes in one legislative period," he told the paper.
Reaction to the Green Party's proposals was swift. FDP election candidate Rainer Brüderle said “Whenever the Socialists manage to come up with anything, it's always got to include raising taxes.” He accused the SPD and Greens of trying to out-bid each other on the issue. “Greens want €40 billion more in taxes,” he said, adding that Germany’s current intake of €600 billion in taxes is higher than ever before.
Horst Seehofer, Bavarian state premier and chairman of the CSU (the CDU sister-party) has also ruled out raising taxes. He told Spiegel magazine that his party’s manifesto will read “No increase on taxes.”
But Green party politician and Schleswig-Holstein state finance minister Monika Heinold was equally unafraid of sending out a clear message. “Yes, we the Greens will raise taxes, and we’re saying that before the election,” she said, adding “voters aren’t in the mood for rose-tinted glasses.”
As a side note - at today’s exchange rate 60,000 Euro’s equal $46,050. 45%? Would let you keep $25,327.50.
Coming soon to America.
Why don’t they just put a chain around their necks, enslave them, and take all of their money?
As a side note - at today’s exchange rate 60,000 Euro’s equal $46,050.
In Germany this becomes a tax on Bavaria, particularly when you include property worth more than a million euros.
Communists being communists.
You are correct, I had it backwards.
Someone needs to read the parable of “The Goose that Layed the Golden Eggs.”
Democrats land in Germany spread misery.
taxes are now just legal robbery.
these people just use them for punitive social engineering.
tariffs on foreign goods first covered government expenses, fedgov anyway.
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