Reform des Einkommensteuertarifs

Abstract

Abstract According to German income tax law, a large number of private expenses are deductible when determining the tax base. These are expenses that do not serve to generate income. The legislature has allowed them to be deducted in order to make it easier for the citizens concerned to finance the existential needs of themselves and those they support and to trigger incentives for certain socially desirable activities e. g. through donations to non-profit organizations. The reduction in the tax burden caused by their deduction increases with the amount of taxable income, which contradicts the principle of fair taxation. It is proposed that the relief in question should in future be regulated by a deduction of 25 percent of the permissible private expenditure from the tax liability according to tariff. Furthermore, the replacement of the current tariff regulated according to mathematical formulas by a tariff completely regulated in stages of constant marginal tax rates is proposed. Simulation calculations show that the tax reform leads to a relief for lower to middle incomes and an additional burden for higher income.