AfD on finance and taxes

The AfD wants tasks and tax revenue clearly divided among the federal government, the states, and municipalities, with a larger share going to municipalities. Whoever assigns a task to municipalities should pay its full cost.

The AfD wants towns to get more tax money. If the state gives towns a task, it should pay for it in full. It should be clear who has which task. States and towns should be allowed to compete a little on taxes.

In a tax reform that also covers the trade tax and sales tax, more revenue would go to the lowest level. The AfD supports tax competition between states and between municipalities within a range of a few percentage points under uniform laws. At least once per legislative term, an efficiency analysis would review how assigned tasks are funded. Lower Saxony would regulate the cost effects of assigned tasks by law, for example with an implementing act like those in other states. The platform cites the right to free childcare as a case where costs were not fully covered.

The AfD wants all German citizens to be liable for tax, even if they live abroad, and wants to stop profit shifting. It rejects the EU levying taxes of its own.

The AfD wants all Germans to pay taxes in Germany. This should apply even if they live abroad. Companies should pay tax here on profits made in Germany. The EU should not collect its own taxes.

The tax liability would expressly cover Germans who have moved to places such as Switzerland or Monaco. International loopholes would be closed, including through rules at the EU level. The AfD wants to develop a new tax system for Germany together with other parties and organizations such as the Bund der Steuerzahler (Taxpayers' Association).

The AfD wants to reduce subsidies, limit them tightly in time, and review them regularly for cost-effectiveness. According to the platform, permanent aid weakens recipients' motivation and burdens the majority.

The AfD wants fewer subsidies. That is money the state gives to companies or groups. The aid should run only for a short time. The state should check whether it pays off.

Subsidies would be granted only for the shortest possible period. Cost-effectiveness reviews would become standard. Only a small, accountable group of people would be allowed to approve them or release funds.

The AfD wants to narrow nonprofit status and end public support for a range of organizations and causes. In its view, many ideological and religious associations recognized as nonprofits act in a one-sided way.

The AfD wants to stop giving state money to certain groups. These include Islamic associations and projects on gender and sexual diversity. Climate projects should get no money either. Only groups that support the constitution should get tax benefits.

Only associations whose purpose can be derived from the Basic Law and that affirm the free democratic order would count as nonprofits. Funding would end for anti-constitutional groups, Islamic associations, gender mainstreaming and sexual diversity, anti-capitalism projects, the promotion of illegal immigration, victim-offender mediation, advocacy for drug legalization, and what the party calls climate protection propaganda. The platform stresses that the AfD is not against pluralism, but that being different does not justify receiving public money.

The AfD wants to keep the debt brake in the state constitution unchanged. This is meant to protect citizens from rising taxes and levies; the party rejects new charges such as a hotel bed tax or a horse tax.

The AfD wants to keep the debt brake. This is a rule that limits new state debt. Citizens should not have to pay more taxes. The AfD rejects a hotel bed tax or a horse tax.

The debt brake has been part of Lower Saxony's constitution since 2019 and should not be loosened under a new government either. New state tasks would be possible only if their funding is secured. More broadly, the platform holds that money is better invested by citizens than by public administration.

The AfD wants residents in Lower Saxony to no longer pay charges when their street is upgraded. It argues that everyone benefits from good roads while the charges place a heavy burden on individual residents.

Today, residents often have to pay when their street is rebuilt. The AfD wants to end these charges. It says good roads help everyone. So residents should not pay alone.

The charges would be dropped across the whole state. According to the program, the way they are collected leads to high costs for adjacent property owners in individual cases. The AfD sees this as an unequal burden that threatens social peace in the affected municipalities.

The AfD rejects Lower Saxony's new property tax law. It expects the law to raise the burden on citizens and total revenue to grow, contrary to what other parties promised.

Lower Saxony has changed its property tax rules. The AfD is against this. It thinks people will have to pay more.

Lower Saxony uses an opt-out clause and has its own state law on property tax. In the AfD's view, this law leads to higher burdens for citizens. The party does not believe the promise that the reform will leave total revenue unchanged.

The AfD wants to lower value-added tax and move to a single rate. It also plans to push at the federal level for a much simpler income tax code.

Today there are different VAT rates. The AfD wants only one rate. That rate should be lower. Income tax rules should also become simpler.

The program criticizes that baby food is currently taxed at 19 percent while dog biscuits are taxed at 7 percent. A single, lower rate is meant to end such differences. The AfD wants to pursue the simplification of income tax at the federal level.

The AfD wants civil servants and officeholders to face criminal liability when they waste tax money. They would be held liable for intent or gross negligence, similar to managing directors in the private sector.

The AfD wants a new law. People in government who waste tax money should be punished. This should apply when someone acts on purpose or very carelessly.

The plan is a separate criminal offense for public employees and officeholders. The program cites the liability of managing directors for organizational failure as a model. Municipal supervisory bodies and audit courts would be required to investigate and report such cases.

The AfD wants tax relief for low and middle incomes and pensions, raising the tax-free allowance to at least 15,000 euros a year. Tax brackets should be tied to inflation, and double taxation of pensions should end.

The AfD wants lower taxes for small and middle incomes. People should pay no tax on the first 15,000 euros a year. This should also apply to pensions. When prices rise, taxes should not rise along with them automatically.

The AfD considers it absurd to tax small incomes first and then top them up with public benefits. The allowance should be adjusted continuously in line with the income protected from garnishment and should widen the gap to Hartz IV. Non-wage labor costs should be capped. Tying tax progression to an inflation index is meant to stop pay raises from pushing up the tax burden disproportionately. The party is critical of taxing pensions in general; by its calculation, the higher allowance would avoid double taxation for pensions up to 1,250 euros.

The AfD wants to enshrine in the Basic Law (Germany's constitution) that cash must be accepted and paid out throughout the economy. It sees cash as threatened by decisions at EU level and by a digital euro.

The AfD wants to protect cash. All shops and companies should have to accept cash. This should be written into the constitution. The AfD fears a digital euro will push cash aside.

According to the platform, the EU Commission and the European Court of Justice have recently made decisions that weaken cash. In the party's view, a digital euro would push its abolition further. The duty to accept and pay out cash is to apply to every sector of the economy and have constitutional status.