Following the cancellation of the planned €1,000 subsidy intended to ease the burden on employees, the Union party is now also calling into question the proposed funding mechanism-an increase in the tobacco tax.
Fritz Güntzler, the Union’s spokesman for financial policy, stated in the “Bild” newspaper that if the relief subsidy is off the table, the proposed compensatory financing needs to be honestly reevaluated. Güntzler specifically referenced the planned advance increase of the tobacco tax, which was intended to backfill the lost subsidy. He warned that the government must be careful about placing multiple financial burdens on consumers too quickly.
According to Güntzler, a swift double increase in the tobacco tax would disproportionately affect consumers and could create misleading incentives. He warned that this might inadvertently result in generating an economic package that fuels organized cigarette smuggling. Consequently, he argued that tax policy requires “prudence, reliability, and good timing”. He therefore recommended that rather than rushing the tax hike, the government should take time to reassess the overall financial situation.
Echoing these concerns, Reiner Holznagel, the president of the Federal Association of Taxpayers, criticized the persistent push for the tax increase. Speaking to the “Bild”, Holznagel noted the considerable contradiction: “The promised tax- and levy-free €1,000 energy subsidy is not coming, but the compensatory funding via higher tobacco taxes is still being put forward”. He argued that the citizen loses the guaranteed relief while the state retains the additional burden for budgetary cleanup. “This precisely creates the impression that the ultimate goal is never genuine relief, but primarily the generation of ever-increasing revenue for the state”.
