The CDU’s party‑conference decision to ease the tax burden on high‑income earners has met with caution from its coalition partner, the SPD. The SPD’s deputy chair in the Bundestag, Wiebke Esdar, told “Die Welt” that the black‑red coalition has pledged for the new year to tackle the challenges together, including how to close the sizable fiscal gap in public finances in an equitable way. “Given that context” she said, “I expect any proposals that enter public debate to also consider the necessary counter‑financing”.
The CDU’s proposal would raise the threshold for the top income‑tax rate from €68 000 to €80 000 a year. Kay Gottschalk, a finance spokesperson for the AfD, praised the move: “A skilled worker already pays the top rate at 1.3 times the average income, which is demotivating. At the same time, this CDU proposal provides relief to entrepreneurs in partnership structures”. Yet he argued that the plan remains piecemeal. The AfD calls for a comprehensive overhaul: a flat 25 % income tax, higher basic exemption thresholds (€15 000 for adults, €12 000 for children), and the complete abolition of the solidarity surcharge.
Green deputy chair Andreas Audretsch sharply criticized the Union, saying, “The CDU has been insulting the working population for months and then passes tax cuts that effectively benefit those very people with basically nothing for most of them”. He noted that the estimated €10 billion in revenue loss would mainly go to the top ten percent of earners, with about two‑thirds of the cut going to that group and the lower 70 percent receiving virtually nothing. “This is politics against the people in the country” he added.
Linke’s economic spokesperson, Janine Wissler, called the CDU’s plan insufficient. While she agreed that reducing the “bottleneck” of the middle class and addressing the cold progression is right, she warned that the revised top‑rate threshold mainly benefits the top ten percent. According to calculations by the German Institute for Economic Research, those top earners would receive €5.6 billion of the total relief. “The broader 70 percent would only see a marginal six percent benefit in comparison-a clear case of upward redistribution and classic CDU clientelism for high‑income earners”.