The President of the Federation of German Industries, Siegfried Russwurm, rejects a so-called excess profit tax. “I have a hard time defining “excess gain”. Where does it start and where does it end?” Russwurm told the German Press Agency in Berlin.
“By the way, one cannot imagine what kind of new bureaucracy would then be required for the determination.” Profits would also already be heavily taxed. “The more profit a company makes, the more taxes it pays.”
“It would be wiser to address the government causes of high prices,” Russwurm noted. “For decades we’ve gotten used to the fact that energy was relatively cheap to procure. The taxes and duties to be paid on energy were all the higher. Now we buy our gas much more expensively – and taxes and duties are growing with it.”
Before the federal elections in the summer of 2021, Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz told German industry that he found an industrial electricity price of four cents per kilowatt hour to be globally competitive. “That should be the goal after all. So far, too little has happened, the elimination of the EEG levy is far from enough.” The EEG surcharge for electricity customers, which was abolished at the beginning of July, was intended to promote electricity generation from renewable energy sources such as wind and sun.
