Schäuble: Greens’ tax plan is ‘nonsense’

“The nonsense the Greens are spouting when it comes to taxes they can only do with the SPD,” he told the paper. He said experiences in other countries showed that higher taxes lead to a decline in investment.

Schäuble is not the only member of his party to speak out against the Greens’ tax plans.

“I’m at a loss over how to justify a black-green [CDU –Green Party] coalition, CDU parliamentary chairperson in North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet told Der Spiegel news magazine.

And Julia Klöckner, chairperson of the CDU parliamentary group in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament, told the magazine that the idea of a coalition with the Greens had become “difficult.”

“Many ordinary earners will notice that they’re to be burdened more than the Greens are admitting right now,” she added.

Members of Germany’s Green Party backed a plan last week to raise income tax to 49 percent for people earning more than €80,000. The current rate is 42 percent. It has also vowed to increase tax on salaries of over €60,000 to 45 percent.

The Social Democrats, the Greens’ preferred coalition partner, also distanced itself from the tax plan.

“We don’t want to burden the working middle class,” Carsten Schneide, SPD budget spokesperson said in an interview with the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, adding “We don’t consider a family earning €5,000 a month to be rich.”

DPA/The Local/kkf