Amid the divergent proposals from the Union and SPD to finance the welfare state, the DGB calls for greater scrutiny of the country’s wealthy. “Those who stand on the sunny side of life must assume more responsibility” said DGB board member Stefan Körzell to the newspapers of the “Neuen Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft” (Thursday editions). “We need a debate about a fairer distribution of wealth – there are huge imbalances” he added.
Körzell urged, among other measures, an inheritance tax without exceptions for large business assets and, in its place, deferral arrangements for companies. He also stressed the need to discuss how the affluent could contribute more to the costs of infrastructure, the armed forces, and demographic change. Körzell wants savers’ interest income to be taxed as well. “We cannot, for instance, tax capital gains flatly at 25 percent while maintaining a progressive income tax” he said.
Because inheritance and wealth‑tax revenues belong to the states, he argued that the federal government should consider a wealth levy: “Extremely large fortunes would pay a one‑time percentage of their assets”. According to Körzell, the levy should include sizeable tax exemptions. “But the billionaires in this country cannot continue to get richer while the distribution becomes ever more unequal” he warned.