Now the excess profit tax for mineral oil companies is coming

When it came to the excess profits of electricity generators, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) still attached great importance to the fact that it was not about an "excess profit tax", but rather the "skimming off of chance profits". This saves you from legal disputes.

Apparently, he no longer shies away from this dispute with companies from the oil and gas sector. Because in an addendum to the Annual Tax Act 2022, there is talk of a tax that these companies have to pay on their excess profits. "The EU energy crisis contribution is a tax within the meaning of the tax code," says the formulation aid from Lindner's Federal Ministry of Finance, which is available to WELT.

All companies active in the oil, gas, coal and refinery sectors must therefore pay extra tax on profits from the years 2022 and 2023 that are more than 20 percent above the average profit achieved in Germany in the years 2018 to 2021. The tax rate should be 33 percent.

The federal government wants to use the revenue as well as the skimming off of chance profits in the electricity sector to cover the financing of the electricity price brake. The expectation of the special levy in the oil and gas sector is much lower. According to reports, it is only about 15 companies. The additional tax revenue of the federal government for the years 2022 and 2023 is estimated at one to three billion euros in the formulation aid. On the other hand, skimming off the chance profits on the electricity market should bring in a double-digit billion amount.

The background is the EU contribution to the energy crisis, which was decided by the Council in Brussels at the beginning of October as a reaction to the high energy prices and must be implemented by the end of the year. It also became known as a solidarity contribution from the energy industry, as a "Solidarity Contribution".

Next up is voting on the draft between the factions. First criticism comes from the Greens. "The Ministry of Finance's draft for the surrender of excess profits from oil and gas companies falls well short of what is necessary," said financial policy spokeswoman Katharina Beck to WELT. In the current form, profit shifts abroad are to be feared. She assumes that the levy can be avoided on a large scale.

Beck demands that both the assessment basis and the amount of the tax rate be tightened. “The EU regulation clearly only describes 33 percent as a minimum rate – a higher rate is possible,” she said. Market fairness dictates a similar treatment of excess profits in petroleum and chance profits in electricity. According to initial estimates, the level of the rate for oil and gas companies would have to be in the order of 60 to 80 percent in order to roughly correspond to the level of the levy in the electricity sector.

Michael Schrodi, spokesman for financial policy for the SPD, initially welcomed the government draft only in principle: "It's good if corporations with excess profits are involved in crisis management," he wrote on the short message service Twitter.

The planned German regulation provides that the companies calculate the energy crisis contribution themselves and report it to the Federal Central Tax Office. According to the draft, this notification must be made at the latest when the tax return for income tax and corporation tax is also submitted. The chronological link is intended to bring a “procedure that is as lean and simple as possible” for the companies. The Federal Central Office based in Bonn is to check and determine the tax.

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