Family benefit equalization

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Under family benefits means the services concerned family to help offset the added expense of the families for maintenance and education of children arises. This can be both tax relief (central regulation is § 31 EStG) and transfer payments . The so-called family benefits equalization since 1996 was also referred to in the past as family burden equalization.

In the 7th Family Report of the Federal Government (2006), however, between family compensation and family tax relief distinguished: "Family policy benefits that are derived from the criterion of needs and living standards, aim to compensate certain strains of the parents, by the birth and upbringing of children arise. These instruments can be summarized under the heading of family burden sharing. In addition, it is a further task of state family policy to compensate for the upbringing, care and education of the children that families provide for society, but which are not paid for through the market. These benefits are summarized as family benefits equalization. "

The individual components of the family benefit equalization

  • Child benefit and the child allowance can be described as the core of the family benefits equalization . These have always been granted in various forms over the past 50 years, with the child allowance serving as a tax exemption for the subsistence level and the additional child benefit being paid as a transfer benefit. The combination of the two regulations has been changed again and again by various governments.
  • There is also the tax exemption for care, education and training expenses . This was introduced as a uniform allowance with the second law on family support of August 16, 2001 (BStBl I 2001). The typical tax exemption is based on the assumption that, with smaller children, the care expenditure usually predominates, which is then replaced with increasing age by the educational effort and finally the educational effort. Therefore, the effort reduces the taxable income of the parents without the need to provide evidence.

Sources and literature

  • Althammer, Jörg (2002): Family Taxation - Endless Reform? , in DIW: Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung 71 (2002), 1, pp. 67–82 ( PDF ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Bering, Stefan and Friedenberger, Martin: Family benefits equalization - reform of the family benefits and increase in child benefit and child allowance , NWB Tax and Business Law 5/2017, 331
  • Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (2001): Justice for families. To justify the further development of the family burden and family benefit equalization , Stuttgart.
  • Dederer, Hans-Georg: BVerfGE 99, 216 - Family benefits equalization . Tax consideration of the entire care and upbringing expenses for all parents . In: Jörg Menzel (Hrsg.): Constitutional Law. Hundreds of decisions by the Federal Constitutional Court in retrospect. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2000, pp. 654-659.
  • de Hesselle, Vera (2002): The current status of the regulation of family benefits equalization in income tax law , Cologne ( PDF ).
  • Dohmen, Dieter; Himpele, Klemens (2006): Refinancing of parental costs for school attendance for children through cuts in child benefit , Berlin and Cologne PDF .
  • Kirner, Ellen; Bach, Stefan; Spieß, Katharina (2001): Statement by DIW Berlin on the public hearing of the Finance Committee of the German Bundestag on June 20, 2001 on the draft of a second law on family support for the SPD and Alliance 90 / THE GREENS parliamentary groups from May 29, 2001 ( PDF ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Rosenschon, Astrid (2001): Family support in Germany - an inventory. Kiel Working Papers No. 1071, Kiel.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Seventh Family Report of the BMFSFJ (PDF), 2006, p. 56, footnote.