Germany’s new chancellor announced $52 billion in corporate tax breaks in an attempt to revive the country’s flagging economy.
The package includes incentives for companies to buy electric vehicles and equipment, and follows March’s much larger $1 trillion public spending plan to modernize Germany’s military and infrastructure. Both have been neglected for years: Bridges are crumbling, school buildings disintegrating, and trains — once a symbol of German efficiency — are now so unreliable that some lines are banned from neighboring Switzerland’s railways.
The new tax package could boost Germany’s standing as a place to invest, one economist told the Financial Times, but easing the country’s restrictive regulatory system “will be more difficult.”
