Status: 05.07.2021 02:39 am
The FDP and the Left have asked SPD candidate for Chancellor Scholz to clarify whether he had used the Ministry of Finance for his election campaign. That was what the “Spiegel” reported. According to this, experts should have worked out a tax concept.
The FDP and the Left have asked Finance Minister and SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz to clarify allegations that he used his ministry for election campaign purposes. “Olaf Scholz has to clarify unequivocally whether he hired the finance ministry on his behalf for the SPD election campaign or not,” said left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Marco Buschmann, the first parliamentary manager of the FDP parliamentary group, also called for transparency. The allegations against Scholz would weigh heavily, said Buschmann. “He would do well to explain himself promptly and comprehensively.”
Concept for income tax reform
The finance ministry and the SPD headquarters had previously rejected a report by “Spiegel” about an allegedly questionable use of the ministry for the SPD election campaign. The magazine had reported that two weeks ago the management of the ministry issued an internal work order to draw up a concept for reforming the income tax.
The officials turned on a publicly funded institute. This mobilized public resources for the election campaign, according to the “Spiegel”. That violates the law.
“Serves to form the opinion of the minister”
A spokesman for the ministry, on the other hand, described it as “customary” for a ministry to prepare technical reports for the minister. “Currently a number of different variants of the reform of the income tax rate have been calculated,” said the spokesman. To this end, the ministry is working with an external institute. “This serves to form the opinion of the minister and is not done on behalf of or at the request of a party.”
An SPD spokeswoman announced that the SPD did not yet have a final tax concept. Positions on tax policy formulated in the party’s future program were based on preparatory work by a commission of the SPD party executive. Specific details are still being worked on.