Alfred Amonn’s discussion article responds to Theo Keller’s criticism of his Bundesstaatliche Finanzordnung. Its central contention is methodological as well as fiscal: proposals for Swiss federal financial reform must be assessed through their arguments, empirical grounds, and stated conditions, rather than dismissed as political advocacy. Moving from a clarification of his book’s purpose to disputes over debt repayment, a one-time wealth levy, and federal–cantonal taxation, Amonn concludes with five questions intended to make the controversy scientifically answerable.
Amonn first explains that his book’s initial section critically condensed roughly 800 pages of official, party, and economic-association arguments into approximately 200 pages. This was an exercise in public judgment, not merely the accumulation of material: citizens needed to understand both competing positions and the strength of their justifications. He likewise insists that the theoretical section supplied reasons for its claims. His demand of a reviewer is therefore precise:
Die Begründungen mögen gut oder schlecht sein; das zu zeigen, darauf käme es wohl in einer solchen Besprechung hauptsächlich an.
English translation: The justifications may be good or bad; to show this would surely be the chief point at issue in such a discussion.
The distinction between evaluating a conclusion and examining its grounds organizes the subsequent rebuttal. On debt repayment, Amonn says he accepted the newer case for non-repayment in principle but regarded its necessary condition as unfulfilled. He also denies having claimed that federal borrowing had already reached its limit:
Ich anerkenne durchaus, dass sich die gegenwärtige Verschuldung noch innerhalb der Grenzen des Möglichen und Tragbaren hält.
English translation: I fully acknowledge that the present indebtedness still keeps within the bounds of the possible and the bearable.
His concern is prospective: further borrowing on the scale of the preceding decades, without repayment of existing debt, could endanger monetary stability and public credit. Against Keller’s assertion that the real debt had scarcely increased since before the war, Amonn cites a rise in the federal debt surplus from 1,529 million francs to an estimated 9½ billion in 1946, while prices and national income had less than doubled. He acknowledges subsequent improvement but insists that criticism distinguish later circumstances from those prevailing when the book was written. Fiscal judgment is thus conditional and historically situated.
The wealth-levy dispute turns on a distinction between an existing capital stock and subsequent accumulation:
Es gehört aber doch wohl zum Begriff und Wesen einer einmaligen Vermögensabgabe, dass sie sich nur auf das in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt vorhandene Vermögen bezieht und nicht auf das sich nachher bildende.
English translation: It surely belongs, however, to the concept and essence of a non-recurring capital levy that it relates only to the wealth existing at a particular point in time and not to that which is formed thereafter.
For Amonn, continued income or wealth taxation does not invalidate this defining feature of a one-time levy. Its proceeds could reduce recurring burdens, making it a means of eventual relief rather than necessarily an additional charge. He also contends that fears of economic disruption must confront actual experience with such levies, rather than repeat objections formulated before that experience existed. The article asserts this evidentiary challenge without presenting a detailed comparative demonstration.
On the division of direct taxation between Confederation and cantons, Amonn challenges Keller’s willingness to accept substantial fiscal inefficiency for constitutional-political reasons. Respect for federalist convictions does not exempt them from examination. The question is what concrete harm unified income taxation would cause, not whether federalism commands attachment. His closing questions sharpen this challenge by asking whether Germany’s tax unification followed an already existing centralizing tendency rather than caused it. He similarly questions whether economic diversity justifies fragmented taxation when considerable diversity also exists within cantons and within countries operating unified systems.
The five concluding questions connect future borrowing and inflation, experience with wealth levies, the substantive case against tax unification, regional diversity, and the prospect that federal expenditure might outgrow national income. Together they shift the dispute from political labels toward consequences and institutional design: what costs does fragmentation impose, what risks would reform actually create, and can appropriate tax arrangements address those risks? The article’s relevance lies in this linkage of fiscal rationalization to standards of democratic and scholarly debate.
Es wäre höchst erwünscht und wichtig, dass einmal diese Fragen wissenschaftlich, objektiv und leidenschaftslos, «sine ira et studio», diskutiert würden.
English translation: It would be most desirable and important that these questions should for once be discussed scientifically, objectively and dispassionately, "sine ira et studio."
This closing appeal gives the polemic its constructive ambition. Amonn does not ask that criticism cease; he asks that opponents identify errors in reasoning, test predictions against experience, and specify the practical content of their constitutional objections.
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