German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil has scrapped a planned increase in taxation on clubs and associations from his tax reform bill, reversing a provision that would have reduced the tax-free allowance for taxable clubs from €5,000 to a €1,000 threshold. Klingbeil said the measure was never aimed at small clubs but at business-oriented associations, and insisted the promised €10 billion gross relief by 2028 would be delivered in full.
The reversal follows sharp criticism of the draft. The Taxpayers' Association dismissed the plans as a "joke or provocation," with its president Reiner Holznagel calling the bill a "poison list" of burdens rather than relief. Christian Social Union parliamentary group leader Alexander Hoffmann condemned the removal of club tax breaks as a misguided savings measure, while Mecklenburg-Vorpommern CDU leader Daniel Peters argued that less than a third of the advertised €10 billion in relief would reach taxpayers.
Klingbeil acknowledged he had initially put forward significantly more far-reaching proposals. The draft foresees a net relief of roughly €5 billion by 2028.