Overview
- On ZDF’s Markus Lanz, CSU general secretary Martin Huber urged regionalizing the levy and said Bavaria would cut rates and raise exemptions, prompting Greens co-leader Franziska Brantner to cite the Bavarian constitution’s warning against concentrated wealth.
- The SPD’s reform concept proposes a €1 million lifetime personal allowance, a €5 million business allowance, progressive rates, and the end of current preferential rules, with tax payments stretchable up to 20 years if jobs are protected.
- Huber and journalist Robin Alexander accused the Greens of downplaying left-wing extremism after the Berlin power outage, a charge Brantner rejected while calling for equal resolve against all forms of terrorism.
- North Rhine–Westphalia premier Hendrik Wüst said the tax debate comes at the wrong time and urged waiting for the Bundesverfassungsgericht ruling to avoid new uncertainty for business succession and investment.
- CDU workers’ wing chief Dennis Radtke pressed his party to close inheritance-tax loopholes that he says cost the state billions, even as Union leaders including Chancellor Friedrich Merz reject the SPD plan and counsel waiting for the court.