Anyone who wants can donate money to the state – but hardly anyone wants to.
(Photo: IMAGO/serienlicht)
Berlin Marlene Engelhorn is a descendant of the BASF company founder Friedrich Engelhorn, will inherit an amount in the double-digit millions – and would like to pay much more tax on it. With around 60 other millionaires, she is involved in the “taxmenow” (“Tax me now”) initiative, which advocates higher taxation of the wealthy.
But if you want, you could already give the state more money today. Not directly as a tax, but by donation. In 2006, the federal government set up a “debt repayment account” and since then citizens have been able to voluntarily transfer money to their state. Only: Almost nobody makes use of it.
Up until shortly before Christmas, just EUR 55,589.46 was received this year, the Federal Ministry of Finance informed the Handelsblatt on request. The total amount that has been transferred to the federal government since the account was set up in 2006 is also manageable: To date, citizens have donated a total of 1.38 million euros to their state. For comparison: Statistically, taxpayers pass the same amount on to the Treasury in less than two minutes.
There is enough national debt that needs to be paid off. This year alone, the federal government decided to take on half a trillion euros in new debt. But even in times when the state has to incur record debts due to Corona, the energy crisis and the Ukraine war, the debt repayment account is not used. And that has its reasons.
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One of them: The account is hardly known. The Federal Ministry of Finance deliberately does not advertise it. The government does not expect such contributions from citizens, nor does it aim to encourage people to make payments, the ministry said.
No advertising for donation account
The tax authorities neither want to beg from their citizens nor compete with charitable organizations or associations for donations. “The state does not depend on donations to finance the federal budget, and it should not convey this impression by actively soliciting donations,” said the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The account cannot even be found on the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance. At least the CDU cannot understand that. This would unnecessarily put obstacles in the way of benefactors who want to do good for the state. The Union should at least be able to find the account.
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The opposition considers it just as wrong that donors don’t even get a thank you from the state. That would be the bare minimum. The Federal Ministry of Finance sees it differently: If there were costs for letters of thanks or other rewards, according to a letter from the Ministry to the FDP parliamentary group, “the intended debt repayment would only be partially achieved”.
Anyone who pays in therefore does not receive a donation receipt, which means that the donation to the state is not tax-deductible. This, however, is not even criticized by the opposition. Because a deductibility would run counter to the basic idea of the debt repayment account: depositors do not want to save taxes, they want to give money to the state.
Germans like to donate – just not to the state
However, the real reason for the reluctance to donate is likely to be other than the account’s lack of publicity or the lack of thank you cards. Because actually the Germans are quite willing to spend money.
The Germans recently donated around 5.5 billion euros a year to aid organizations, animal welfare and sports clubs. According to estimates by the Federal Association of German Foundations, charitable foundations contain a further 68 billion euros. Apparently, citizens don’t just want to anonymously transfer money to a federal account that the state can then use to reduce debt.
But if you still want to make a contribution to reducing debt: In a small inquiry in April, CDU party leader Friedrich Merz had the federal government calculate how much each citizen would have to transfer to the debt repayment account so that Germany would be debt-free. As of April, it was a one-off per capita of 17,507 euros for 83.2 million people and 1.457 trillion euros in debt.
More: Why this millionaire thinks he pays way too little in taxes