German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said on Wednesday he wants to help farmers pay lower taxes by introducing so-called “income smoothing”, Reuters reported, citing Agerpres.

“Revenue smoothing” means that instead of one fiscal year, several years are used to pay taxes,” Lindner explained at a conference organized in Berlin. This will allow farmers to spread their profits over several years to reduce the tax burden.

Lindner justified his proposal by saying that the yield of agricultural land fluctuates greatly from year to year, making it difficult for farmers to plan.

“I want to introduce ‘income smoothing’ into the Fiscal Code in 2024,” Lindner emphasized.

Late last year, German farmers took to the streets with their tractors to protest the government’s intention to cut diesel subsidies as part of a wider package of austerity measures. They resumed their protests earlier this year.

In recent months, farmers have staged protests across Europe for a variety of reasons, ranging from the European Union’s environmental policies to unfair competition from products from abroad, especially from Ukraine.

The German parliament agreed on “income equalization” for farmers

Germany’s upper house of parliament (Bundesrat) is set to pass a package of fiscal measures worth around 3.2 billion euros for SMEs on Friday. The package was approved by the lower house of the German parliament back in November last year, but is still blocked in the upper house.

CDU/CSU conservatives conditioned approval of a package of tax measures for SMEs on a change in the government’s stance on subsidizing diesel fuel used in agriculture.

Since the Berlin executive believes that this is not an option, it has decided to offer other concessions to the agricultural sector, such as “income equalization”.

“We are having constructive discussions” with farmers’ representatives, Christian Lindner added.