CDU on finance and taxes

In talks on the national port strategy, the CDU wants the federal government to raise its financial compensation for seaports and adjust it regularly in the future. The coastal states are also to coordinate their port policies more closely.

The federal government pays the states money for seaports. This amount has been the same since 2005. The CDU wants the federal government to pay more. The amount should rise regularly in the future. The coastal states should work together more closely.

The compensation is to return to its pre-2005 level and be indexed going forward. The platform notes that under the Basic Law the states are responsible for ports and their funding. Coordination among the coastal states is to cover, among other things, infrastructure, energy transition hubs, faster planning and permitting, digitalization, securing skilled workers, and joint marketing.

The CDU wants to use a subsidy program to waive the real estate transfer tax for families who buy a home in 2024 and 2025. The same is to apply to buyers of older buildings in need of renovation. The platform cites higher interest rates and building costs and calls home ownership the best retirement provision.

People who buy a house pay a tax. It is called the real estate transfer tax. The CDU wants to waive this tax for families in 2024 and 2025. This should also apply to buyers of old houses that need repairs. More families should be able to afford a home.

For owner-occupied property, the CDU plans a purchase allowance of 200,000 euros per adult and 100,000 euros per child. The relief is to run as a subsidy program for purchases in 2024 and 2025. Buyers of older buildings in need of renovation are also to benefit. The platform argues that keeping and renovating existing buildings in a climate-friendly way helps protect the climate. It says the tax eats up most of many buyers' own capital.

The CDU wants to review every item of spending in Bremen's budget and make day-to-day administration more frugal. Residents would be able to submit savings proposals and share in the results.

The CDU wants to check all of Bremen's spending. Bremen should be more careful with money. People should send in ideas for saving. If an idea saves money, they get a share.

The platform calls for finding savings in the budget and for more frugality in everyday practice. To that end, all spending would be reviewed. Residents would be asked to report possible savings. If a proposal actually saves money, those who submitted it would share directly in the gain.

The CDU wants no tax increases in Bremen and a freeze on fee increases. Through relief for the middle class and for young families buying homes in need of renovation, it aims to counter out-migration and strengthen the tax base through growing cities.

The CDU does not want to raise taxes. Fees should not go up either. Young families should pay less tax when they buy a home that needs a lot of repair. This should keep more families in Bremen.

The platform provides for a moratorium on fees of all kinds, meaning no further increases. In the Bundesrat, the CDU would back offsetting bracket creep and raising inheritance tax allowances. Young families buying a home with especially high renovation needs would get relief on the real estate transfer tax. The platform justifies this with out-migration, which it says cost about 180 million euros in annual tax revenue as of 2022. Tax offices would process returns faster with better IT, automation, and AI, and tax auditing would be brought up to the nationwide standard to reduce lost revenue.

The CDU wants to stick to the Schuldenbremse (constitutional debt brake) and keep new borrowing to a minimum. It cites fairness between generations and interest payments of about 550 million euros a year, which it says limit the state's room to act.

The CDU wants to keep the debt brake. This is a rule: the state should take on almost no new debt. Bremen pays about 550 million euros in interest every year. The CDU wants young people to still have money for important things later.

The guiding principle of budget policy would be that revenue must cover spending. The debt brake enshrined in the federal and state constitutions would be observed, new borrowing kept minimal, and interest and repayment burdens reduced as far as possible. The CDU also announces cuts to running costs and higher investment spending beyond 2023. In the platform's view, budget discipline is what creates room for investment and signals to businesses and residents that taxes and charges should stay moderate. The platform points to debt of nearly 23 billion euros and to the Stability Council classifying Bremen as a state in budgetary emergency.

The CDU wants to stop the planned drawdown of the pension reserve of roughly 500 million euros. The fund would become a sustainability fund investing in safe, environmentally friendly assets.

Bremen has saved money for the pensions of its civil servants. It is about 500 million euros. The CDU wants to keep this money. It should go into safe and green investments.

The gradual drawdown planned so far would end in order to secure civil servants' pensions for the long term. The platform points to future pension obligations of about 20 billion euros and therefore calls dissolving existing safeguards irresponsible. The converted fund's investments are also supposed to yield an attractive return.

The CDU wants spending priorities on education, transport and infrastructure, the economy, and police and justice. It wants to counter disproportionate growth in social spending and end across-the-board cuts.

The CDU wants to spend money mainly on certain areas. These are education, transport, the economy, police, and courts. Social spending should not grow so fast. The CDU no longer wants to cut the same amount everywhere.

For the social sector, the platform calls for an overarching anti-poverty strategy whose measures are continuously checked for effectiveness. The stated aim is that people no longer remain dependent on state support. Cutting evenly across all areas would give way to clear priorities. The CDU wants to bundle core state functions and organize them more effectively.

The CDU wants regular checks on whether public spending and grants to projects are necessary and meet their goals. It also wants projects delivered faster, private service providers more involved, and federal and EU funding used more fully.

The CDU wants to check whether public money has an effect. Projects should show with numbers what they achieve. Bremen should plan and build faster. Bremen should also get more funding from the federal government and from Europe.

Standardized indicators showing concrete effects would replace lengthy narrative reports, with digitization and AI helping to cut red tape. Investments would be carried out faster and on the basis of reliable planning and costing; to that end, management at Immobilien Bremen, for example, would get more staff and fewer bureaucratic hurdles. The CDU wants to expand cooperation between the public sector and private service providers. Use of federal and EU funding would become more professional, and co-financing duties would be shared more fairly between the state and its municipalities.

The CDU wants to replace the federal property tax model with Lower Saxony's area-and-location model, which it considers simpler and fairer. Municipal multipliers would be set so that revenue stays the same and would not be raised afterward.

Property tax is paid on land and houses. The CDU thinks the new way of calculating it is too complicated. It wants to use the rules from Lower Saxony. Overall, the tax should not go up.

The platform criticizes the procedure for the new property tax under the federal model as bureaucratic and hard to understand. Lower Saxony's area-and-location model takes size, development, and land value into account. The model is supposed to rule out creeping tax increases in particular. The CDU links the reform to its goal of slowing the departure of young families.