Greens slow corporate tax reform before election

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The Green party in German has put the brakes on a bill that would have cut corporate taxes in that country. The bill has been controversial ever since its introduction, mostly because of its reliance on credits to pay for the revenue lost to the tax cuts because of the low levels of public funds currently available. The chair of Germanys parliamentary finance committee, a Green party member, called the tax cuts inadequately financed. Besides the Greens, the Social Democratic Party feels that the bill might be seen as too friendly to business, hurting their chances in the elections that chancellor Gerhard Schrder called for September. It is said that they would be just as happy to see the bill simply go away quietly before the election. If it were passed, the bill which would cut the federal corporate tax from 25 to 19 percent and the total corporate taxation, including municipal taxes, from 38.7 to 32.7 percent. Implementing the cuts would cost Germany around 6 billion (4.1 billion, $7.5 billion).