Oettinger to German CDU chief: EU officials pay taxes!

Commissioner bats for Brussels in letter to Kramp-Karrenbauer.

European Commissioner Günther Oettinger has some advice for his party leader back in Germany: Lay off EU officials and their taxes.

Oettinger, who is responsible for the EU budget and human resources, put it more politely than that in a letter to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, leader of the Christian Democratic Union.

But his message was clear after Kramp-Karrenbauer called in an op-ed outlining her vision of Europe for taking “long overdue decisions” and ending anachronisms on issues such as the taxation of EU officials.

“As commissioner responsible, among other things, for personnel, I would like to draw your attention to the following,” Oettinger wrote in his letter, dated March 11 and seen by POLITICO. “EU officials’ incomes are already subject to taxation for the benefit of the European Union.”

The marginal tax rate is “up to 45 percent” (for the upper portion of senior officials’ salaries), “approximately corresponding with the average marginal tax rate in most EU member states” — plus there’s a “solidarity levy of 6 to 7 percent,” Oettinger explained.

The reason EU officials pay their taxes into the EU budget, Oettinger wrote, is to avoid Belgium and, to a lesser extent, Luxembourg — the homes of most EU institutions — being the only countries to benefit.

In a gentle dig at the CDU’s new boss, who took over from Angela Merkel as party chief in December, Oettinger declared that “I am available for further engaged discussions with you, on this as well as other important European political questions.”

In other words: You’ve got a CDU commissioner in Brussels, you might want to consult him occasionally.