According to Omid Nouripour, an “excess profit tax” is a fair way to make more money and keep prices down.
(Photo: imago images/Jens Schicke)
Berlin Green leader Omid Nouripour has spoken out in favor of an “excess profit tax”. “There are currently individual companies that are capitalizing on the war as freeloaders of inflation,” Nouripour told the newspapers of the Funke media group, according to a preliminary report. An extra tax for these companies is a fair way to make more money and keep prices down.
Green party leader Ricarda Lang had already brought up the idea of an excess profit tax at the beginning of May. “We have been observing a decoupling of the price of crude oil and gas station prices for months. A few are benefiting, while a large number of medium-sized companies are suffering from the high energy prices and are wondering how they are going to get through the next year. The excess profit tax would be a logical step,” Lang told the “Tagesspiegel”.
Some other top politicians recently joined the proposal, including SPD leader Lars Klingbeil and Green Party leader Katharina Dröge.
The petroleum companies are being criticized for the high fuel prices. A cut in energy taxes on Wednesday only caused prices to fall temporarily. Recently they had risen again in many places. According to the ADAC, the price for Super E10 had risen again on Saturday morning. Diesel was roughly at the level of the previous day.
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According to the traffic club, both fuels were too expensive. “There is clearly not enough for the consumer,” said an ADAC spokesman. “The development is going in the completely wrong direction.”
Nouripour wants climate money with a steering effect
Omid Nouripour also criticized the concept of Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) for social climate money. “With the climate money, we will make sure that climate is included,” Nouripour told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Monday). It must “also have a control effect on climate protection”. In the previous proposal, he did not recognize this.
Heil had proposed paying people with a gross income of up to 4,000 euros a month a state subsidy once a year from 2023 and thus offsetting rising energy prices. The traffic light partner FDP had already commented skeptically to negatively on the proposal.
The government cannot spend money in this crisis without thinking about the necessary climate protection measures, otherwise it will have to spend a lot more in the future. You have to create incentives to switch from fossil to renewable energies and energy efficiency. People should be supported in the transition.
With a view to the skepticism about climate money, especially among the FDP, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil pointed out that the project had been agreed in the coalition agreement. “We are still discussing the best way. But one thing is clear: the climate money will help to support households with small and medium-sized incomes with the costs of the climate-neutral conversion of our society,” said Klingbeil of the Funke media group.
Klingbeil made it clear that the coalition committee stated that Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) would work out a model for the payment of climate money by the end of the year. Last week, Lindner criticized the Heil concept as bureaucratic. In addition, his proposal is not covered by the coalition agreement. In order to relieve citizens with low and middle incomes, Lindner proposed a tax reform.
More: SPD, Greens and FDP are heading for major conflicts