"Mr. Evers has a rogue's eye on the political left"

The VVN-BdA is threatened with the withdrawal of its non-profit status. What happened?

We were asked by the responsible Berlin tax office to submit the tax return for 2024 and 2025 early. The letter states that, in the authority's opinion, the non-profit status of the VVN-BdA is at risk due to our campaign "Defend human dignity - AfD ban now!"

Behind this is apparently a campaign by right-wing media that questioned the non-profit status of the VVN-BdA before and after the AfD party conference in Erfurt

According to a letter from the tax office, “due to the management becoming public.” Behind this is apparently a campaign by right-wing media that questioned the non-profit status of the VVN-BdA before and after the AfD party conference in Erfurt. The keyword for this is a law professor, Volker Boehme-Neßler. He has also described calls for a ban on the AfD as a breach of civilization. Of course he knows what the term “break in civilization” stands for in the context of German history.

How is the threatened withdrawal of non-profit status justified?

With our positioning against the AfD, we would become active in party politics. This is of course nonsense, you can speak out against right-wing extremism and the AfD without speaking out for any party.

What would the withdrawal of non-profit status mean for the VVN-BdA?

That would be serious. That would mean we would have to pay tax on donations from the past three years. In addition, something called donor liability would come into play. People who donate to non-profit organizations can deduct these donations from their taxes. By withdrawing the charitable status, the state would try to get the tax payments saved in this way back from the recipient of the donation, i.e. our association. We would suddenly have very high tax debts. Added to this is the degradation, the devaluation in the ideal area. We would always be accused of being the ones who only faked our charitable status.

Politically responsible for the tax office is Stefan Evers, Finance Senator and CDU top candidate in the current election campaign...

Mr. Evers is a right-wing CDU member and has a crush on the political left. Now he is making himself the vicarious agent of right-wing and right-wing extremist media. The suspicion is that the tax office's actions are definitely a signal to a very right-wing electorate.

How does the VVN-BdA defend itself against the threat of withdrawal of non-profit status?

We are currently trying to create as much publicity as possible on the topic. We started a petition against it on Campact. And of course we would be happy if as many people as possible wrote to Mr. Evers about what they thought of the actions of the Berlin tax office. We are also preparing to appeal against an impending negative decision from the tax office.