Is Germany being unreasonable? Childfree adults paying more for elder care

[Fauxlein]

"Childfree adults to pay more in elder care contributions — report
According to a report from German media group RND, federal Health Minister Nina Warken has prepared a draft bill that would have adults without children pay a higher percentage of taxes towards publicly-funded elder care.
The bill would have contributions from childfree adults increase by 0.7% over a period of years, meaning they would pay 2.5% of their income each month. Their employer will be expected to pay 1.8%. For adults with children the rates will remain the same: 1.8% for people with one child, 1.55% for people with two children, and 1.3% for people with three or more children.
Under the proposal, all adults over the age of 23 who are working full-time would be affected.
It is unclear when Warken, a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), will submit the draft to the cabinet. Her ministry had originally said it would present a proposal for elder care reform in mid-May. With a long-stagnating birthrate mildly buoyed by immigration, Germany needs to act fast to make sure older generations can be taken care of without placing an undue burden on young people."

YABU - German Health Minister is being unreasonable, it's not kids responsibility to look after elderly parents and is unfair to penalise child free people
YANBU - this seems like a fair counterbalance to increasing costs to the state of elder care

A single person without children on NMW is likely to have LESS disposable income than a two-parent household with two NMW incomes (let alone earning way above median wage in your example) just because of two lots of personal allowance and shared housing costs. Living in a single person household is very expensive.

It's forcing them to go through extremely private/potentially dangerous information with a random call centre employee (or it's done by AI) or face a financial penalty.

Abusive husband: 'Why are we paying the higher tax? You need to release your medical records to them'.

Abusive husband: 'WTF is this? I've got the outcome from the Tax Office. You had an ABORTION? You're using contraception? Who were you fucking when I was at work/before you met me?'

Call Centre Staff: 'Um, so, this says that you were taking the contraceptive pill from 15 to 35. No, saying you have endometriosis isn't a reason, as our guidance says that pregnancy resolves that in the majority of cases and you weren't referred for fertility treatment by the time you were 37, so you obviously didn't want to have a child. And in any case, unless you have surgical intervention and it was confirmed on pathology reports saying Endometriosis in the womb lining, it doesn't count. What's Adenomyosis, that's not in our list of exemptions? Dyspareunia? What's that? That's not in our criteria. So were you having sexual intercourse at an adequate frequency? And did he reach completion every time? Well, if there's nothing wrong with you, it must have been him. We'll need evidence of his sperm count and motility for the duration of your childbearing years. Well, can't you ask him?'

Kinder, innit? Already got the Kirche part as they're the ones that want these measures, after all.

Another good point…. If woman has an abortion would the man be able to claim the discount as it wasn’t his decision? But obviously the woman would have to pay up.

🙄

This is a stupid thing to say. People who are genuinely super rich can move wherever they like. If you were to tax their assets not their income (which they dont officially have anyway in most cases due to interesting accounting!) then they still pay. If they own assets in the country - property, shares etc they cant just up and move them.can they?

Everybody in Germany with children gets child benefit for each child.

The childless could also leave too.

And many rich claim frequently they will leave and few ever do.

Largely because there are many reasons people choose to live somewhere and tax is just one.

And it’s penalising people for infertility with no knowledge of if they would actually need more assistance and ignoring that them foregoing children may have saved the state money.

It’s just weird you are more relaxed with that.

Genuine question
I don't understand this , because the rates of immigration are so high everywhere.
Isn't that the point ( from government point of view ) of immigration to increase the workforce

There are surely better ways of incentivising people to have more children (which seems to be the motive for this in general), than this.

I don’t agree with this, as it can start going down a complicated rabbit hole.

Should childless people pay less tax then as they don’t need to contribute towards child benefit/education/funded childcare hours/free school meals?

Should people with chronic illnesses who use the NHS more pay more?

I barely use the NHS at all - see the GP once a year or less. Should I pay less national insurance than someone with cancer who’s receiving regular chemo/other treatments?

The point is that as a society we have a responsibility to support each other. Those children will grow up to become the carers of those without children, yes. But that’s just life - we can’t penalise people for not having kids

Yes, I could leave Germany to save 30€ a month.

I think people are saying that in response to those arguing that people who are unable to have children should be subject to financial penalties.

The idea that the prospect of being able to spend a few % a month on parenting rather than on tax will tip decision-making in favour of having a child is laughable. People everywhere already have children they can only afford by tightening their belts and living close to the poverty line. And if 2.5% of the average income really is what is standing in the way of having a child, then being able to hang on to that 2.5% is hardly going to guarantee a good quality of life, considering the cost of raising a child and how sluggishly salaries have risen in comparison to the rise of COL. (On a related note, there may be a disincentive for some to progress at work if any benefit from incremental salary rises is mostly wiped out.) So if anyone is proposing this as an incentive to kickstart the birth rate I'm afraid they have zero appreciation for why people are not having children - which is often to do with strong existential pessimism. But I refuse to believe that it is actually being proposed as an incentive. The messaging is confused: they need to sell it as a child benefit for people who already wanted kids, not as an incentive.

The additional tax on the rich is a small portion of the wealth which is why few leave just to avoid tax. The argument applies both ways.

You can own property in Germany and live in Switzerland. Then you pay Swiss tax on the income from rent.

Well.then thats another rule Germany should probably look at!

Is it?! Me and my husband are child-free by choice and both higher rate taxpayers. So far (touch-wood) we are massively under-users of healthcare, education, maternity benefits, housing benefits, job-seeking benefits etc. I don’t begrudge paying for any of that by the way but not sure the fact we don’t have children justifies us having to also stump up more for care later?!

It's not exclusive to Germany though - you can own property in the UK and live elsewhere, and then obviously you'd be taxed on the rental income in your country of residence.

???

That’s a very nirmal rule in double imposition.
You pay the taxes where the income has been earnt (so taxes in Germany for rent there) and then declare that income and the taxes you’ve paid in Switzerland.
As it’s likely that you won’t have paid taxes in the rent in Germany, you end up paying them in Switzerland (added to your income in Switzerland)

Nothimg to do with Germany. It’s a rule applied worldwide (mostly. Some countries will expect you to pay twice, once where you’ve earned the money and then again where you live)

You have to understand this within the context of the German system. In Germany, under the right circumstances, children can be financially on the hook for their parent's care. So logically those with children will be paying more for their care than the childless - via their children.

Yes because it’s about society as a whole abd taxes benefitting sciety rather than looking at how much you’ve paid/received across your lifetime,

There will always be people who will receive a lot. Very few who will have paid more in general (thinking roads, education you have received, healthcare etc etc).
Trying to separate in even more smaller parts, like looking at care only or healthcare only or education only etc… is just crazy
1- because evaluation is very hard to do
2- because you are benefitting indirectly from it - let’s say having care paid for means your university teacher could carry in working when their parents were in need of care)

It's to change the narrative/reform the discourse into women's reproductive choices and sexual behaviour becoming a matter of public knowledge, oversight and control.

Introduce something that's blatantly unfair for the 'right sort' of woman (ie, married, was not able to conceive, middleclass, white) and exemptions are demanded. Cool, well, you'll be able to prove that. Statewide access to women's gynaecological records is therefore enabled to satisfy the conditions applicable to women most likely to be in the position to campaign for the amendment - with obviously, prominent males emoting to make this sound like 'poor man, he's being penalised for having a barren spouse, let's change the law now'.

Drop in campaigning from Poor Men who are forced to pay the tax despite having a child they don't know about. How is this fixed? Oh, here's a good idea, they get the right to know if anybody they've ever had sex with has a child. Could be a bit difficult if he doesn't know how to contact her - oh, here's a solution. Let's have AI matching DNA records. That way he doesn't have to upset somebody by contacting them, he'll just find out he has a child when his annual taxes are assessed. Why on earth would a woman want to refuse that? Surely it's a man's right to know and have his tax advantage? Well, you say that she says it was non consensual, but there's no Police Report at the time that says so.

It's another attempt to bring about a captive breeding programme for White Men.

It’s wrong on many levels.

• As others have said, we don’t pay our taxes based on usage. If we did, childfree people would pay less tax as they don’t use schools and use the NHS much less etc, etc.
• It punishes people for not having children even it’s not by choice – so after the misery of infertility (or child loss), you get taxed for it.
• It punishes gay people for whom the journey to parenthood is much harder and more expensive. (But, of course, that’s part of the far right’s agenda, so to them it's a feature, not a flaw)
• It puts the onus on children to care for their parents, something that isn’t always practical or desirable, especially in cases of family breakdown or abuse, or of children who move away from their parents.
• It’s a tax on women as it’s much harder to determine whether men have children or not.
• It assumes childless people have more income, which is simply not true. There are plenty of wealthy parents and the reverse.
• It’s the thin end of the far right’s handmaid’s tale vision of the future, encouraging women to stay home and produce babies - Kinder, Küche, Kirche as their forebears in Germany called it.

As someone who doesn't have children and more importantly doesn't have children because i cant afford to have them! I do think it's disgraceful to ask people to pay more tax, i dont have children for the right reasons and now they want to tax people for thinking this way is absolutely awful. It also sounds more like a punishment for people who cant have children. It's very much in poor taste if you ask me.

I don't think that is unreasonable in principle. But what care will it provide? And will it be means tested?

Can we please stop saying children people.dont use schools etc. Of course they did when they were children.
Education
Maternity care
Children healthcare etc

These are all benefits for the children. They are people in their own rights. Just like you, me and everyone else. And we ALL benefit / benefitted from these things.
KIDS ARE NOT POSESSIONS TO BE OWNED BY THEIR PARENTS
I agree with the rest of your post for the most part though :)