Taxes – Hanover – Althusmann: tax offices should repay input taxes – politics
Berlin/Hannover (dpa) – Lower Saxony’s Economics Minister Bernd Althusmann will ensure that the tax authorities pay back pre-tax hours or back to companies in the energy crisis. In view of an impending recession, he called for immediate liquidity support for companies in an interview with the online medium “Business Insider”. In addition, advance payments on income, corporation, trade and sales tax should be deferred – automatically and without an application, said the CDU politician. The tax authorities should also repay advance payments for the second and third quarters to energy-intensive companies.
The CDU politician warns of a serious recession: “If we don’t do anything, then the alternative is that exactly what we don’t want will happen, namely a quiet death of small and medium-sized businesses,” he said. “The situation is getting worse from week to week. We now have to help the companies to prevent the super meltdown.” State elections in Lower Saxony are on October 9th. Althusmann is the CDU’s top candidate.
Althusmann explained that the deferral should be limited in time. For the time being, they should include the advance payments for the period from the fourth quarter of 2022 to the second quarter of 2023. If necessary, the debt brake should be temporarily overridden. However, this remains an “ultima ratio”: “In the end, debt always means further heating up of inflation and that cannot be in the interests of the German economy,” he says.
Because the deferral of advance payments in the case of trade tax would cost the already often cash-strapped municipalities billions, Althusmann suggested a protective shield for municipal hospitals and public utilities. To do this, the federal states would have to be willing to do their part: “If a protective shield is required to accompany and cushion state finances and municipal finances in parallel, we must also get it started.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220930-99-958697/2