Merkel’s Party Shuns ‘Stone Age’ Greens Amid Tax-Rise Pledge

Germany’s Greens party backed a campaign platform of tax increases that members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc said rules out a coalition after national elections in September.

Delegates at a Greens party convention in Berlin yesterday voted through plans to raise the top rate of income tax to 49 percent for those earning 80,000 euros ($104,000) a year or more, and to 45 percent from 42 percent above 60,000 euros. They also backed a “wealth levy” on the richest to pay down 100 billion euros of Germany’s state debt over 10 years.