00:00No, Germany is not imposing a tax to fund Ukraine and Israel.
00:07A raft of videos on TikTok are alleging that the German government will introduce a so-called solidarity tax to finance foreign countries such as Ukraine and Israel.
00:19They claim that as of the 1st of August, the federal government led by Friedrich Merz will automatically deduct money from wages and transfer it abroad at the end of the month.
00:31These claims are false and have been firmly denied by a spokesperson for the federal government.
00:37We detected the claims being shared by TikTok accounts which profess to be satirical, but they are often amplified by other users without any disclaimer sowing disinformation.
00:47The allegations play on the concept of a solidarity surcharge, which does exist in Germany and was introduced to fund the costs of German unification.
00:58It still exists today, but only applies to the 10% of the highest earners, businesses and investors.
01:05There are no calls to use it to fund other countries, and in fact, there are increasing calls to scrap it altogether.
01:12We detected several similar TikTok videos spreading false narratives about the Merz-led coalition government, which was installed in May this year and is composed of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, as well as the centre-left Social Democratic Party.
01:29They included allegations that from January 1st next year, German supermarkets will only accept card payments and that cash will be rejected.
01:37Other claims state that Merz would introduce home visits to monitor people on sick leave from work.
01:44There is no truth to these claims.
01:46They represent an emerging trend of satire being amplified as disinformation, sowing confusion on platforms.
