🇩🇪 IN FRANCE, THE TIRES WOULD BE BURNING RIGHT NOW!
From the other side of the world I read the German headlines at a distance. This distance leaves me stunned, because you suddenly see the whole list at once instead of swallowing each report one by one.
And the list is a sham:
- Sugar tax, new
- Plastic tax, new
- the tax‑free holding period for crypto after one year is abolished, future rate about 26 % like capital income, planned from 2027
- Tobacco tax up
- Alcohol tax up
- and there is even talk of a higher VAT
Each item is discussed politely on its own. Here a provocateur, there a talk‑show topic. And that is exactly the trick. As long as you get angry about the sugar tax, you don’t get riled up about the fraud behind it.
Because while six corners simultaneously reach into your pocket, the same state is planning over €200 billion of new debt for 2027. Let that sink in. It squeezes you on all fronts, and the debt mountain still grows. You pay on top, the hole at the bottom gets bigger. A completely grasping profiteer that looks for new victims everywhere and nevertheless rides deeper into the mire.
What really drives me up the wall is a detail. Gold, foreign currencies, collectibles remain tax‑free after one year under §23 EStG, completely untouched. Only crypto is singled out. Constitutional jurists see a crystal‑clear violation of equal treatment under Article 3, the lawsuit wave is already in the starting blocks. Why this one asset? Because it is the easiest, most convenient target. Digital, traceable – and no lobby to push back.
And then the number that exposes the whole charade: the crypto tax is estimated to bring roughly €1 billion, halved from the original €2 billion. €1 billion against over €200 billion of new debt. For the budget, a drop in the bucket. For the individual investor, the same figure hits the portfolio directly. Purely a principle issue – the move that costs the least resistance.
Nonetheless the German finance bubble is currently fighting back loudly. Ready to fight rather than resign, #ProHaltefrist is trending, people finally make some noise. And that is exactly how it should be.
And no, I’m not playing the superior one who got out in time. Because in parallel there’s talk of an exit taxation and a tax on unrealized gains based on the Dutch Box‑3 model. So the very door I walked through is being sealed shut. Stay and swallow the 26 %, or leave and risk the exit tax – they consciously give you no clean way out.
What really makes me furious is the calm around it. In France half of them have tires burning on the streets. In Germany it’s brushed off – one report, a sigh, back to the daily routine. And this is my homeland, damn it. It eats at me that it’s taken so passively.
Maybe I’m far away and see this too harshly from here. So tell me what I miss from the other side of the world. What still needs to happen before the calm finally breaks? 🌴
