“Irresponsible intervention in tax law”

The head of the German tax union has sharply criticized the federal government's tax policy in connection with the relief packages. "It's frightening how irresponsibly politicians intervene in tax law just because they don't know how else to get the social balance they want with state aid," said Florian Köbler in an interview with WELT AM SONNTAG.

He considers the taxation of the gas price brake to be unconstitutional. "With the gas price brake, there is no return at all, consumers only pay less for gas - they should still pay taxes on it," he said. The Federal Ministry of Economics, in particular, is happily developing tax ideas that do not fit the tax law system.

Köbler also rejected the proposal of the German government's council of experts to increase the top tax rate. "Anyone who abuses tax laws for short-term redistribution purposes should not be surprised if the willingness to pay taxes at all dwindles."

In view of the expected shortage of skilled workers in the tax administration, Köbler called for the laws to be simplified. “I assume that by 2030 around 40,000 of the current 120,000 jobs will have to be filled for reasons of age. Where people are supposed to come from is a mystery to me," said Köbler.

Therefore, there is no way around the fact that more tax returns would be processed by the computer. "To do this, we not only have to invest a lot more money in digitization and artificial intelligence, we also need simpler tax law," he said.

Köbler spoke out in favor of significantly increasing flat rates for advertising costs and the saver flat rate, for example. This eliminated the need for time-consuming individual verifications. "We should get to the point where normal employees no longer have to do a tax return," said Köbler.

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