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“You can tell I am a master of compromise by the fact that every deal I make leaves no party satisfied and all of them out for my blood.”
Minister-president Leopold Beck (2004)

As a country whose legislature has, at any given point in its modern form, consisted of no less than five political parties, Weissmark is no stranger to compromise. Still, Minister-president Scholz’s National Conservatives (NKP), the Social Democrats (SDPW), and the Greens (GD) were a particularly odd alliance to see as they worked to get the Taxation Reform Act passed through the Assembly of Representatives. The bill, despite being opposed by some members of Scholz’s own party, was ultimately successful, and Grand Duke Joseph II gave his assent to it this morning. The bill contained a number of changes to Weissmark’s tax code, including:
Taxation on income in excess of 200,000 guilders was raised from 45% to 48%.
The highest property tax rate was doubled from 2% to 4%, while the minimum was lowered from .5% to .2%.
The law is also known colloquially as the Sin Tax Act. Not only were the already considerable taxes on alcohol and tobacco increased, a new luxury tax was also introduced.
At the insistence of the Green Democrats, a carbon tax was created with a flat rate of 7%.
The tax increases marked a sharp departure from previous NKP policy, who, under Minister-president von Dürr, had pursued a policy of fiscal conservatism. Scholz, a self-described conservative Christian democrat and leader of the hardliners among the NKP, had long been a critic of this, accusing von Dürr and the moderates of ignoring Catholic morality (a serious charge, in a country where over 70% of the population is Catholic) and “aligning with wealth hoarders.”
Opposing the act was not just the moderates of the NKP, but also the Old Liberals and a large amount of the NKP’s coalition partner, the National Liberals (in a rare display of unity between the two parties). A group of Social Democrats, led by Anton Grean, also opposed the bill on the grounds that the sin and carbon taxes would disproportionately affect the poor, and that the increases on personal income tax weren’t going far enough.