The boss of the economic wise calls for tax increases for higher earners. In order to distribute the burden of the energy crisis more fairly, “someone has to foot the bill,” says Schnitzer. The Vice President of the Institute for the World Economy holds against it.
The head of economics, Monika Schnitzer, defended the committee’s proposals for sharing the burden in the energy crisis. “We have become poorer as a country, and someone has to foot the bill,” said Schnitzer in a debate moderated by “Spiegel” with Stefan Kooths, vice president of the Institute for the World Economy. It is true that broad shoulders are already deceiving today. “But now there’s more to pay.”
Kooths, on the other hand, called it “unsuccessful” that the economists argued with solidarity in their report. “Solidarity is not an economic category, economists can only comment on it as private individuals.” You can’t “say with every additional state expenditure: There’s still something going on”. Schnitzer replied that the Council of Economic Experts’ proposals are only about a “temporary tax increase or an energy solo, i.e. a small one to two-digit billion amount. You are opening a bogus discussion here to protect the rich.”
According to Kooths, higher taxes are one of several factors that could make Germany less attractive internationally. “I’m not concerned with the rich, but with signals that we are also sending to the rest of the world: Are we a location where it is worth starting a business? Or are we mainly operating a large redistribution machine here?”
Schnitzer was confident “that gas prices will be significantly lower again in 2024”. By then, terminals for liquefied natural gas and the infrastructure for its distribution would be in operation. “Of course, prices will still be higher than before the crisis, and we will have to deal with that,” said the economist. “For the companies, this means, for example: They have to adapt – or close their shop.”
