Germany's Social Democrats are polling ahead of Merkel's bloc for the first time in 15 years

[Celerity]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/25/germany-election-spd-polls-ahead-of-merkels-cdu-not-seen-in-15-years.html



The upcoming election in Germany has now become even more unpredictable. Voters are heading to the ballot box on Sept. 26 and the latest poll, carried out by Forsa, shows support for the Social Democratic Party, SPD, increased to 23% of the vote. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative alliance of the CDU/CSU, meanwhile, dipped to 22%. It is the first time in 15 years that the SPD has overtaken the CDU/CSU alliance in the polls. The SPD has been the junior coalition party in the wider government led by Merkel, who is retiring from politics after 16 years in power.

The SPD has been in coalition with the conservatives in the past, a notion that was typically seen as a negative among its supporters for being unable to push ahead with its agenda. However, this now appears on track to change. Led by chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, Germany’s Social Democrats has seen the party’s popularity improve in the wake of the country’s worst natural disaster in decades. Torrential rainfall last month resulted in almost 200 deaths and hundreds more injured as disastrous flooding devastated property and plantations. Another poll, conducted by INSA, had shown on Sunday the SPD neck-and-neck with the CDU/CSU.

The last time the SPD was the leading party in Germany’s coalition government was back in 1998, when they joined forces with the Green party. “Some CDU/CSU leaders have reacted with harsh attacks on Scholz’s alleged agenda of big spending and tax hikes,” Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at consultancy firm Teneo, said in a note on Wednesday. “The substance of these claims is questionable, but they do suggest that Laschet’s already nervous alliance is taking the threat very seriously,” Nickel said.

Armin Laschet is the leading conservative candidate who hopes to replace Merkel in the chancellery. Laschet’s popularity has been questioned on several occasions, including when the CDU/CSU were choosing their main candidate for the upcoming election. At the time, some CDU members criticized the overall decision to headline the vote with Laschet rather than with Markus Soder, prime minister of the region of Bavaria. German media reported Wednesday that 70% of CDU/CSU supporters want to replace Laschet with Soder.

snip

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Sounds like people preferred Merkel over conservative parties.

[Celerity]

2. Merkel and the CDU are the main conservative party in Germany nt

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Aware of that. Just noting that cdu is dropping now that merkel isn't running. .

[DFW]

6. The CDU acted like fools

Instead of searching for a Merkel clone, they reverted to the old boys' club they used to be (and the SPD still is), and chose from three professional bureaucrat-politicians, all men. They had more than a decade to start looking for, and grooming a suitable candidate, and came up with their hands empty. The SPD chose a bureaucrat-jerk as their candidate last time, and got their asses handed to them. If the CDU thinks the formula failed for the SPD but will win for the CDU, they're smoking the wrong peyote.

[DFW]

5. That's like saying Americans preferred Joe Biden over the Democratic Party

Merkel WAS from the conservative party. She just had so much common sense and compassion that she was a true conservative rather than a right wing nut case. They radical right can CALL themselves "conservative" all they want, but that's like saying that wading into the ocean makes you a fish. You can call yourself a fish, but it still won't give you gills.

They preferred Merkel over the extremists of the right and left, and the incompetence of the center-left. With good reason, I might add. But now that her party has shown itself incapable or unwilling to nominate a successor who would carry on in her vein, they are slowly dropping into the wishy-washy mass of professional politicians with no idea of what it is like to make your living out there in the real world. They have about four weeks to clean up their act, which I think is not enough time. They might give the election to the SPD by default, and for the sole reason that the SPD's candidate presents a less befuddled figure than the CDU's candidate. Believe me, half a year after the election next month, the Germans, no matter who wins, will be cursing their choice, and begging Merkel to come out of retirement. Fat chance. The next time she gets invited to give the commencement speech at Harvard, she might just decide to stay there.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Kinda what I was saying. Voters llked Merkel more than her party.

[DFW]

3. Germany has far too many parties

The Weimarer Republik failed and gave way to the NSDAP (National Socialists, or "Nazis" for short), handing them power in 1933 with just 43% of the vote due to the fracturing of the rest of the vote.

The CDU/CSU of Angela Merkel never allowed for their true talent to rise to the top, and so were faced with three colorless jerks as their chancellor choice. The guy who won out, Armin Laschet, is so gaffe-prone, he scores so high as to leave Joe Biden with not so much as an honorable mention. The SPD's Scholz, while a consummate bureaucrat, is not gaffe-prone, and only has to wait out the CDU's mistakes in order to win by default. Unfortunately, he is also caught up in the SPD's apparently eternal, tired "mehr Gerechtigkeit" slogan ("more justice" ) that lost them the last election. Both they and the Greens think that raising taxes on the already heavily taxed Germans will somehow be the magic bullet that cures all ills. The Germans already reach their maximum tax level (de facto about 50% including all surcharges) at about $85,000 in gross income, AND they pay a 19% VAT (national sales tax) on all goods and services.

Despite some serious setbacks, Merkel, who was neither a bureaucrat nor a professional politician, led Germany with competence and a steady hand for the last 16 years, and felt she had had enough. That her party didn't even give some of its competent women a chance to rise as a possible successor is a shining symbol of their weakness. The SPD has had a similar attitude towards its women, so they don't get any medals in that regard, either. The Greens have a younger woman as their figurehead, but her proposed policies are very close to the SPD. They present them better, but will still present the same serious incentives for business and jobs to leave Germany for neighboring countries. I'm sure the French, the Belgians, the Poles and the Czechs are rooting for them, although Belgium is so corrupt, I'm sure they are the least likely to benefit from such a situation.

The far right AfD is greedily licking its chops at the slipping of the CDU, and present a clear and present danger of Germany getting too much power for a serious version of today's Republican Party. If a leftist government gets in and does badly, the AfD will pick up the slack, much as the NSDAP did in 1933. The far left "Die Linke" is only slightly different from the old East German ruling party, the SED, despite its efforts to put on a respectable face. No one will ask them into a national coalition any more than they will ask the AfD. The supposedly "pro-business" FDP, once a rational middle-of-the-road coalition partner, is blatantly a friend of the fossil fuel industry, and is led by a slimy liar. It can no longer be trusted to have the national interest at heart, and will hopefully only be a choice of last resort.

My wife, once a reliable Greens voter, is totally dismayed at the choice next month. I don't blame her. But Herr Noneoftheabove is not on the ballot of any party. She'll vote either SPD or Greens, and hate it the whole time.

[Celerity]

8. what additional taxes (not VAT as you said PLUS VAT) on $85K get you to a 50% effective rate?

$85K is €72K

this is what I come up, and it is not that near 50% (this assumes straight regular wage income, no investment/dividend/cap gains/real estate, etc incomes)

It is around 32.5% (include all income tax and other taxes/fees)

This is for a married Tax Class III (which is similar to my Swedish filing status) 25yo in Berlin West, no children

Even if I file as a single, not married, no children Class I filer, it is still 'only' around 40.5%

the taxes are:

Income tax

Solidaritätszuschlag aka Soli (changed in 2021, no longer hits this income, and was small before anyway)

Kirchensteuer (I am an unbaptised atheist who would never join a religion, let alone a church, so this goes bye bye for me)

Pension Insurance

Unemployment Insurance

Health Insurance

Care Insurance

[DFW]

10. My wife never left the Catholic Church

Even though she is as much of an Atheist as the rest of us, her mother is a devout Catholic, and she doesn't want to upset her at age 94. The Solidaritätszuschlag still shows up on my German tax return at around 5%, and the current max tax is 42%. Added up, it borders on 50%. Plus, I have no pension here, and no health insurance. The government only takes from me, gives nothing back. I have a German friend here who started his own business close to 50 years ago. He is still active, and he had his accountant calculate out at what point during the year he stopped working for the government, and started working for himself. The date was sometime in late September.

If the Soli was changed in 2021, I won't hear about it until the end of next year, when the return for 2020 is due. My income is solely in the USA, but taxed in both countries. The Doppelbesteuerungsabkommen, according to both an expert in the field and a neighbor, who is both a judge on the Finanzgericht zu Düsseldorf, sort of the State tax court, as well as a professor on taxation at the University of Bonn, has plenty of holes where an individual can be hit for taxes on the same income in both countries, and end up paying as much as 70% or more on the US income, depending on its form. He wrote his doctorate on double taxation. Our neighbor knows German taxation better than just about anyone, and if he says I'm screwed, then I can pretty much take it that I am. It is his job to know what a taxpayer resident in Germany can get away with and what he can't.

[Celerity]

14. wow, that double taxation is crazy, the US is the only major nation that bangs you on completely

foreign earned income, above a certain level (which I hit on my last US returns). I have never worked a day in my life (for pay) in the US.

After the age of 1 (I was born in Los Angeles to non US citizen parents in 1996), I only lived there as an 'adult' for a couple years whilst I read for my MBA, and I did not work for any wages (did an unpaid internship).

here is the info on the Soli


Wir schaffen den Soli für fast alle ab

https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Web/DE/Themen/Steuern/Steuerliche_Themengebiete/Solidaritaetszuschlag/solidaritaetszuschlag.html

Ab 2021 entfällt der Solidaritätszuschlag (Soli) für fast alle: Rund 90 Prozent der Lohn- und Einkommensteuerzahler*innen, die bisher mit dem Soli belastet waren, werden vollständig von der Zahlung befreit, weitere 6,5 Prozent zahlen weniger. Das ist eine der größten Steuersenkungen unserer Geschichte. Für fast alle ist also künftig „mehr drin“ – für Singles, Lebensgemeinschaften, Familien und Alleinerziehende. Erfahren Sie hier alles rund um den Soli – und errechnen Sie, was die Abschaffung ganz konkret für Ihr Nettogehalt bedeutet.

Soli-Rechner

Ab Januar 2021 fällt für rund 90 Prozent der Lohn- und Einkommensteuerzahler*innen, die bisher den Soli gezahlt haben, der Zuschlag komplett weg. Für weitere 6,5 Prozent entfällt er zumindest in Teilen. Im Ergebnis werden 96,5 Prozent bessergestellt. Berechnen Sie hier Ihre Steuerersparnis!

Hinweise:

1 Bei Zusammenveranlagung umfasst das zu versteuernde Einkommen die Einkünfte beider Ehepartner.
2 Sie kennen Ihr zu versteuerndes Einkommen nicht? Ermitteln Sie den Wert im Lohn- und Einkommensteuerrechner. Bitte beachten Sie: Beim Solidaritätszuschlag sind abweichend von der Einkommensteuer Kinderfreibeträge in allen Fällen zu berücksichtigen.
3 Ihre Steuerersparnis ergibt sich aus den ab 2021 deutlich angehobenen Freigrenzen (auf Basis Ihrer Angaben und ohne Gewähr).

I hope that helps!

cheers

[DFW]

15. It doesn't make clear who still pays,

But there is reason for hope, anyway. Thanks for digging that up.

As for double taxation, the USA is one of THREE countries in the world that foes not recognize residence-based taxation. The other two are Eritrea and some other small African nation. It is widely quoted that a US passport is one of the most expensive to own.

[Celerity]

17. It's down to just the US and Eritrea (2% for them, and they are under the cosh as it funds a

dictatorship, multiple countries have expelled their ambassadors and other diplos over it).

Hungary has a semi foreign PAID citizenship income tax but only on work done in Hungary and paid from abroad.



All other nations that tried to tax their citizens on worldwide income have stopped.

It is a huge American scam, as the maximum exclusion for 2021 is only $108,700 per taxpayer. The vast majority of people paying it are hardly the uber rich, 'millions of dollars per year in foreign income' types. I get lashed hard already as a Swedish taxpayer.

[DFW]

18. I hadn't seen the part about the maximum exclusion

If that is the case, I am royally screwed for 2021. I will have to ask the guy that does my U.S. taxes about that. For that matter, I'm pretty screwed already, actually, so what else is new? The German expert advised me to move back to the States for a year, cash out my Roth IRA while there, and then return to Germany so they can't take close to half my retirement money. At least I wouldn't have to fight to keep what I already paid the taxes on.

In some circles, it seems fashionable to point to us expats as "billionayahs avoiding paying their fayah shayah" while living on a yacht in the harbor of Monte Carlo. That may even be true for a couple dozen people, but the other nine million of us Americans abroad live in a different situation entirely. Six million of us are eligible to vote, and population-wise, we are somewhere near the middle of the fifty states, population-wise. But we have no representation and no lobby in Washington, so it's more convenient to portray us all as owning yachts in Monte Carlo and say, "screw 'em." When Senators and Congressmen come calling for contributions, I always remind them, and they listen, but they always have "more important issues" to contend with.

The day that "American Abroad" have two Senators and a few Congressmen in Washington will be the day of change in what we expats put up with, but that is a day neither of us will live to see.

[Hortensis]

9. Scary times that threaten a return of vicious archconservatives

to national power, there, here, and in many other nations. Especially since global warming guarantees that the displaced peoples setting xenophobic hair on fire today are nothing to those of tomorrow.

From what I've read though, at least Germany's Social Democrats are a long-established party that supports regulated capitalism, which the Democratic Party does. Not a clueless fringe tearing at the ankles of progressive democracy while RW authoritarians go for its throat.

I feel for your wife. Good luck to us all. We need it.

[DFW]

11. The mainstream parties here used to dominate postwar politics

Instead of trying to build a broad consensus, typical Europeans, they got more and more complacent and rigid in their ways. Predictably, people who didn't tow the line completely, as well as unreasonable extremists, got disenchanted, and formed their own parties. The Greens were originally an upstart group of environmentalists who attracted large numbers of young SPD members who felt confined. Later on, the more extreme members of the SPD joined the East German SED/PDS veterans to form Die Linke.

In the 1980s, a small group of rightist extremists, led by an ex-SS officer, wanted to form a Neo-Nazi party. The NSDAP was forbidden, so they needed another name. They found it right in the good old USA, and called themselves "die Republikaner." Reagan was in office then, and they found his policies inspiring enough to take the name. When I used to point this out to Republicans in the USA in the 1980s, they indignantly asked, "are you calling me a Nazi?" I would reply, "not at all. I'm just saying I find it unfortunate that a group of German Neo-Nazis find you guys appealing enough to want to adopt your name."

Now, with anti-immigrant hysteria in full swing ever since the Syrian wave of refugees, the far right has again felt strong enough to come out of the woodwork. This time, with the already xenophobic East Germans to recruit from, the Afd (Allianz für Deutschland), have found a real following. With a national polling of 15% to 20+%, they are no joke any more. "Die Republikaner" rarely polled above 3%, and often less then 1%. Although the AfD don't pose a threat to take power in the foreseeable future, the mere fact that they poll in double digits is alarming. A German government shouldn't need to watch their back from these extremists, but with all that's going on in Poland and Hungary, they would be foolish to ignore the tendencies.

All extremists go for the throat, I'm afraid. The East Germans were confirmed Stalinists until Honecker was forced to go on permanent vacation to Chile, and their party's hold on power started to disintegrate under popular pressure. I visited East Germany a few times when it was still that. No place in Europe EVER gave me the chills more than that place. Propaganda banners everywhere, units of soldiers doing the old Nazi goose step through town squares, random hour-long interrogations during entry and exit, and a law forbidding more than four people to sit together in public. The "Realexistierender Sozialismus (True existing socialism)," was interesting, but scary. "Die Linke" would love to put that back into place, and some of their senior members have hands-on experience with running such a show. The extremists on the right aren't the only ones out there who would be cause for alarm.

[Elessar Zappa]

12. Authoritarians

are bad whether they call themselves left or right although it’s a perversion of left wing ideology and a feature of right wing ideology. Hopefully Germany can avoid getting themselves into the same mess we’re in here in the States.

[malaise]

13. Th Reagan-Thatcher New World Order is over

We want societies not markets.

[leftstreet]

16. +1

[Marius25]

19. It's mainly because Scholz would be the new Chancellor

and people don't trust Laschet to take the mantle from Merkel. Scholz isn't ideal, but he has more experience and is a bit more stable than the other options. The Green party leader is too inexperienced.