Tax dispute in the federal government: Linnemann attacks SPD

The choice of words of the CDU general secretary has it all: “People only shake their heads when we now come around the corner with tax increases after the mad debts,” says Carsten Linnemann star. That won’t exist with the Union. The Secretary General thus sets the coalition partner SPD a stop sign in the tax debate.

Behind it is a fundamental dispute from the coalition talks, which almost led the conversations to demolish. Now he breaks up again.

He triggered statements by finance minister and SPD party leader Lars Klingbeil. “No option is taken off the table,” Lars Klingbeil had emphasized in the ZDF interview on Sunday and thus explicitly not excluded higher taxes for top earners and wealthy to fill the gaps in the household.

The SPD chief and finance minister had only replied to a corresponding question, did not make a specific proposal himself. But the admission was sufficient to provoke the coalition partner’s hard contradiction. Especially since other SPD politicians have followed: “To reject tax increases in the richest in the richest means to endanger the agreed relief for millions of people and the urgently needed growth impulse,” said SPD vice-leader Wiebke Esdar.

CDU general secretary Linnemann replies clearly: “We have to limit the hunger of the state for higher taxes, rather priorities have to be set.” This includes Linnemann reforms in the social security systems and in the civil allowance. “Weighing taxes are currently meeting our medium -sized companies and the craft,” said Linnemann. “They can use everything in these times, just no higher loads.” Group leader Jens Spahn and Chancellor Minister Thorsten Frei had also previously said, albeit more reserved.

In the CDU there is a fundamental discomfort against tax increases, especially since the federal government has secured a lot of money for investments due to new, very high debt options. This attitude goes as follows: “The Federal Government took the second step before the first with the special funds. “This is how Manuel Hagel, the influential group leader and top candidate of the CDU in Baden-Württemberg.” Now it is time to catch up: reforms, savings, state modernization. “

Hail appeals to the coalition partner in the federal government: “I hope for the reasonable in the SPD, who are wondering how we can secure jobs in Germany and create new ones – and at the same time also question why your party loses more and more constituencies to the AfD in the once red Ruhr area. “There is the chance of” new economic dynamics, “says Hagel.” You shouldn’t fold that with ever new tax increase discussions and the work on our economy. “

Tax policy is, so to speak, the original conflict of black and red. Even during the coalition negotiations, financial and tax policy was one of the biggest issues. The government formation would almost fail, shortly before the end of the negotiations. Why is the conflict topic opened again?

In the SPD you can see it like this: Despite the new debt, the federal government is faced with massive budget problems, in the budget for 2027 a hole of almost 30 billion euros must be stuffed. Finance Minister Klingbeil therefore has an overall package to compensate for the missing billions: through savings and additional income. According to the attitude, both sides would then have to make painful concessions.

The finance minister gives an insight into his thinking in his ZDF interview: there Lars Klingbeil had an older announcement by CSU boss Markus Söder, that there will be no higher taxes, said: “Mr. Söder, too, has now contributed to some projects that are important to him, that a gap in the household is growing. “What was meant, for example, was the premature increase in the mother’s pension. Now it was about putting on a table and comparing the respective suggestions in order to reduce the household gap.

The topic of taxes had caused a dispute in previous grand coalitions. A compromise was often to talk about the overall burden: If you reduce taxes for companies and medium -sized companies, you could tax rich more because there would be no higher tax revenue overall. This would hardly help when closing the household holes.

In such a direction, for example, the proposal, the SPD parliamentary group manager Dirk Wiese recently in star made. His idea: The top tax rate could work later, but very high income would be more stressed at the income tax rate. This would relieve skilled workers in particular, said Wiese. Previously, SPD parliamentary group vice Wiebke Esdar had also brought an increase in inheritance tax and higher contributions to “super-rich” in order to be able to counter-financed, for example, the agreed reduction in corporation tax for companies-an important point for the Union.

The dispute is also a foretaste of the upcoming budget negotiations in parliament. From the beginning of September, when the summer break ends, the different views of the Union and the SPD are likely to collide all the more violently. For many in the CDU, an increase of taxes would be equivalent to a further betrayal of former principles after the debt package.

As a precaution, a high-ranking CDU man announces resistance: “If the Federal Chancellor should also agree on this with the SPD, the faction slips away,” he says. “We don’t participate.”

At least in the coalition negotiations, the negotiator Merz is supposed to answer this question star-Informations have remained iron -hard. When the SPD came around the corner shortly before the end of the conversations with the idea of tax increases, it is said to have threatened with demolition.

The crucial question is whether the Chancellor Merz can afford it.