(New: Details)
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Finance Minister Christian Lindner could actually rejoice. Good news at last: Despite the crisis, more tax revenue is flowing into the state coffers than expected. But the FDP politician warned on Thursday that it wasn’t all that simple. The number of additional revenues forecast by the tax assessors is only “optically” large, in reality most of it has already been planned. “We will return a significant part of the additional income to the citizens,” promises Lindner. Nevertheless, the opposition is putting pressure on more crisis aid for citizens and companies.
According to the forecast presented by Lindner, tax estimators assume that the federal, state and local governments will earn around 126.4 billion euros more by 2026 than was expected in May. This year, however, tax revenue is expected to be 1.7 billion euros lower than predicted due to the energy crisis.
The overall positive estimate comes as a surprise at first glance, because the economic forecasts are extremely gloomy due to inflation and the energy crisis: Germany’s economy is shrinking and is probably heading into a recession. The federal government expects economic output to fall by 0.4 percent in the coming year. Because they have to keep their money together, many consumers restrict their private consumption.
That would actually indicate a decline in tax revenue, because corporate taxes in particular are dependent on the economy. However, a major factor in the current development is the high level of inflation: if goods become more expensive, the income from the taxes that have to be paid on them also increases. Above all, the value added tax flushes more money into the coffers. In the first nine months of 2022, the state took in around ten percent more than in the same period of the previous year. In addition, the federal government sees signs of a significant recovery in the economy as early as 2024.
The tax estimate is an important basis for deliberations on the budget for the coming year in the Bundestag. For 2023, the experts expect additional government revenue of EUR 8.9 billion and a total of record revenue of EUR 937.3 billion. The federal government alone could get 4.5 billion more than previously thought.
The opposition immediately has ideas as to what to do with it: “The traffic light can and must provide faster and more extensive crisis assistance for citizens and companies than previously planned,” demands Union budget keeper Christian Haase. Left faction leader Dietmar Bartsch warns: “It must not be that people in the country suffer thousands of euros more and at the same time only experience limited relief.”
But Finance Minister Lindner sees no scope for additional spending requests. In 2023 he wants to fully comply with the rules of the debt brake again. In addition, the high tax revenues are deceptive, he warns. Because the state is also feeling the effects of inflation: many things are also becoming more expensive for it, especially personnel expenses and interest payments. “It remains essential to maintain budgetary discipline,” emphasizes Lindner.
In addition, the tax estimators only take into account reforms that the Bundestag and Bundesrat have already passed. Parts of the relief, which should cushion the high prices for the citizens, are still in the parliamentary process. This applies, for example, to Lindner’s plans to adjust the income tax rate to the high inflation. Including all of this, Lindner and his budget experts have calculated that there would be a deficit of 7.4 billion euros for the federal government in the coming year. In 2024, instead of a plus of 11.6 billion, there would actually be a minus of 4.7 billion.
This would have more than used up the supposed increase in income. Lindner still wants to stick to his relief plans for taxpayers. The state should not benefit from the high inflation at the expense of the citizens, he emphasizes. From his point of view, the colleagues in the cabinet, whose spending requests the FDP politician has recently slashed, have to save more. The tax estimate now makes it all the more necessary to “continue to operate in a disciplined manner,” he now emphasizes./tam/DP/ngu