AfD on finance and taxes

The AfD opposes levying the wealth tax again. It sees it as double taxation that hits small and mid-sized firms and family businesses especially hard while raising little revenue.

The AfD does not want a wealth tax. That is a tax on what people own. The AfD says this money was already taxed once. The tax hurts family businesses most of all.

The platform argues that wealth is built from income that has already been taxed. Because of valuation problems, the tax is complex and costly to collect yet brings in comparatively little. It could threaten the survival of family businesses. It would also favor public employees, since their pension entitlements do not count as wealth, unlike the retirement savings of the self-employed.

The AfD wants to abolish the Grundsteuer (property tax) entirely because collecting it is complicated and costly. In return, municipalities would be allowed to levy their own surcharge on income tax.

The AfD wants to end the property tax. That is a tax on land and buildings. Towns should get a share of income tax instead. Renters should usually pay less as a result.

Municipalities would set the level of the surcharge themselves within a prescribed range. The burden would then follow taxpayers' economic ability to pay. The platform expects renters to be better off in most cases.

The AfD wants to scrap the charges that residents in North Rhine-Westphalia pay toward road upgrades. It argues that these charges hit households unexpectedly and often exceed what they can afford.

Today, residents help pay when their street is rebuilt. The AfD wants to end these charges. It says the bills come suddenly. Many households cannot afford them.

The platform notes that most German states have dropped such charges or never had them. In the AfD's view, the current NRW rule that waives half of the charge creates a lot of red tape. The party calls this a special path taken by the state and wants it to end.

The AfD wants to preserve cash and rejects any upper limit on cash payments. It sees cash as protection against negative interest rates, against disclosure of people's transactions, and against technical failures.

The AfD wants cash to stay. It also wants no limit on paying with cash. It says cash protects people's freedom. You can always pay with cash, even without technology.

According to the platform, cash keeps banks from passing on negative interest rates widely, because customers can withdraw their deposits. Without cash, the AfD argues, every payment would be visible to the state and to companies. Cash also works without cards, readers, batteries, or network connections. The party likewise rejects a cap on cash payments.

The AfD wants to use the Bundesrat to permanently lower VAT to 16 percent and the reduced rate to 5 percent. It also wants to eliminate small, low-yield taxes as far as possible in order to simplify the tax system.

The AfD wants to lower the sales tax called VAT. It should drop from 19 to 16 percent. The lower rate should drop from 7 to 5 percent. Small taxes that bring in little money should go.

The cut would be permanent and, according to the platform, would mainly benefit families. As examples of minor taxes, the AfD names the fire protection tax and various entertainment taxes. In the party's view, these raise little money, cost a lot to collect, and burden businesses such as restaurants and event organizers. The platform says steering people's behavior in detail through taxes does not fit a free society.

The AfD wants the state-owned NRW.Bank to do only business that directly benefits the state and its residents. It also wants Sparkassen (public savings banks) to remain available across the state for payment services despite mergers.

NRW.Bank belongs to the state. The AfD wants the bank to do business only for NRW. Foreign business with no link to NRW should stop. Savings banks should stay available everywhere in the state.

The platform points out that the state is liable for all risks taken by the development bank, which also finances governments at home and abroad. Foreign activities with no connection to NRW would end immediately and existing positions would be wound down. For savings banks, the AfD demands that they stay present across the state despite merger and competitive pressure.

The AfD wants to add the debt brake from Germany's Basic Law to the constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia. Debt taken on during the COVID crisis would be fully repaid within 25 years.

The debt brake limits new government debt. The AfD wants to write it into the NRW constitution. The state should pay off its COVID debt within 25 years.

In the AfD's view, this would strengthen the state parliament's oversight powers, including through judicial review before the state constitutional court. Passages of the state constitution that conflict with the federal rule would be deleted. The aim is to pay down COVID-era debt as quickly as possible.

The AfD wants the state to give cities and towns enough money for their mandatory tasks and also for voluntary services. In its view, municipalities in NRW are chronically underfunded and have almost no room to act.

Cities and towns need money for their tasks. The AfD says they get too little. The state should give them enough. The money should also cover voluntary services.

The platform cites the mandate in the Basic Law and the state constitution to secure municipal funding. In practice, it says, that mandate is not met: municipal debt is rising and local leeway is often close to nothing. The AfD links the demand to preserving local self-government.

The AfD wants to create a separate criminal offense for wasting taxpayers' money. It considers this as serious as tax evasion.

The AfD wants to punish the waste of tax money. There should be a separate rule for this in criminal law. The AfD says waste is as bad as not paying taxes.

The new offense would be written into the Criminal Code. The party puts the waste of public funds on the same level as evading taxes. From this it derives its demand for criminal liability.