Cabinet: First step for possible direct payments to citizens

The federal government doesn’t want to create the technical possibility of paying out money directly to citizens until next year. The Ministry of Finance announced this in the evening, correcting a statement from midday. Finance Minister Jörg Kukies (SPD) declared that the basic mechanism for flat-rate payments should “be available this year”. The ministry later wrote on

Initially, only flat-rate payments should be possible, later payments differentiated according to income to subgroups of the population. The federal government is reacting to a problem that was highlighted, among other things, in the energy crisis at the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine: Until now, there was no way to directly, quickly and specifically pay out money to support citizens. There was also no payment method for the climate money to compensate for the CO2 price that was announced in the traffic light coalition agreement but was not implemented.

Kukies explained that the new payment mechanism would allow people to receive quick and targeted support. At the same time, he emphasized: “The future federal government must decide on specific services.”

In order to make the payment possible, the citizens’ account details are also stored alongside the tax IDs in the database of the Federal Central Tax Office. Some of the data comes from the family fund, but you can also enter an account number yourself in the Elster portal or allow the house bank to transmit it.

Green MP Lisa Badum welcomed the progress. “As soon as Christian Lindner is no longer finance minister, the key points for the disbursement mechanism for climate money can be decided in the cabinet,” she said. Now the climate money must be implemented in the coming legislative period as quickly as possible and without bureaucracy or applications.