Tax splitting I

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Tax splitting I
Logo of the Federal Constitutional Court on its decisions
Decision announced
January 17, 1957
Case designation: Submission of a legal dispute by the Munich Finance Court by way of specific legal control
Reference / reference: BVerfGE 6, 55
Follow-up story: Spouse splitting from 1958
statement
1. Equal rights for women include the possibility of achieving market-based income with the same legal opportunities as any male citizen.

2. The isolated joint assessment of spouses for income tax is unconstitutional and void.
3. The unchanged norm of a law otherwise changed after the proclamation of the Basic Law is not a pre-constitutional right.

Judge
dissenting opinions
no
Applied Law
Art. 3, 6 and 100 para. 1 of the Basic Law

Tax splitting I is the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court that led to the introduction of spouse splitting in 1958. The decision is significant in several ways:

  • The 1939 Income Tax Act envisaged a joint assessment of spouses in such a way that two taxpayers were combined into one taxable person. The declared aim of this standard was to guide married women not to work. The court declared this to be unconstitutional.
  • At the same time, the court develops the principles of pre-constitutional legal norms from the time before May 23, 1949 (see Art. 100 I GG).
  • The court explains the systematic relationship between the protection of marriage and family (Art. 6 I GG) and general equality before the law (Art. 3 I GG).
  • The decision overrides the progression tariff introduced in 1951 with an exponential percentage tax rate for married couples. As a reaction, the Adenauer government introduced an income tax law in 1958 , with a splitting that became a tradition in German tax law.
  • As a result of the decision, the joint assessment of parents and children was also declared unconstitutional and null and void: Income tax laws 1951, 1953, 1955 and 1958 (→ Tax Splitting II )
  • The decision specifies the equality of women and men and the requirements that bind the legislature.

Material statements

The decision is based on the following detailed statements:

  • Article 6, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law is not only a classic basic defense right to protect the specific privacy of marriage and family (→ Status Negativus ), it is also an institutional guarantee for both marriage and the family. In addition, it is a fundamental norm, i.e. a binding, objective value decision that binds the executive and legislature when developing norms.
  • The legislature's room for maneuver is limited by fundamental norms, in which value decisions of the constitution are expressed for the legal and social order in Germany. If the incompatibility of a norm with such a special basic norm is established, there is no longer any room for a constitutional examination of this norm from the point of view of equality before the law (Article 3, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law).
  • For the legislature, it is binding constitutional law that interferes with marriage and the family through disruptive interference by the state is prohibited. This includes, in particular, the fact that the spouses are in a worse position than those who are not married. Such a worse position does not result solely from the joint assessment of spouses for income tax, nor solely from the introduction of a progressive tariff with exponential percentage tax rates. However, the combination of these taxation instruments leads to an additional burden and, in this sense, a worse position for married couples solely because of the characteristic of being married.
  • Article 6.1 of the Basic Law is also a fundamental right of defense and contains the freedom of specific privacy for marriage and the family. It corresponds to a guiding principle of the constitution, namely the fundamental limitation of all public violence in terms of the possibility of influencing the free individual. From this thought follows the recognition of a sphere of private life that is beyond the control of the state. The salary of such private freedom of choice for the spouse also includes the decision as to whether a wife devotes herself exclusively to the household, whether she helps the husband in his job or whether she earns her own market economy income.
  • The legislature may not directly force a certain arrangement of the private sphere of marriage. If such direct coercion is unconstitutional, the same goal cannot be suitable for legitimizing a measure which, like the joint assessment, is intended to indirectly serve this goal. A justification of the joint assessment therefore fails with the argument that the aim is to “lead the working wife back into the house”.
  • If the legislature also pursues an educational effect with tax law standards , this must itself correspond to the constitution.

Formal statements

Formally and legally, the decision extends the principles of pre-constitutional law:

  • A legal norm that has remained unchanged is not a pre-constitutional right if, after the Basic Law came into force, Parliament has changed other norms of the same law and thus leaves the entire body of law in the old form and confirms it with its will.
  • Such a norm cannot be overridden by every court, but can only be reviewed by the constitutional court and, if necessary, declared null and void. In addition to the other instruments for reviewing norms ( constitutional complaint , abstract review of norms ), a court is obliged to submit a dispute to the constitutional court in accordance with Art. 100 I GG if it is convinced that the norm is unconstitutional (specific review of norms).

Individual evidence

  1. BVerfGE 18, 97
  2. BVerfGE 5, 85 [200, 204] and 7, 32