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

What other solutions can you suggest then?

And there’s no need to be so rude and start swearing.

Nearly 20% of 18-25 year olds are currently unemployed ( and not in education) . If we are going this way then let’s tax their parents more for having children that aren’t economically active given the rest of us continue to pay for their existence…..Same position right?

Blessed be the fruit and all that....

You think there’s no other solutions to pay for elderly care than to suggest women undergo invasive procedures to prove if they’re fertile or not? Seriously?

This leads to rich Germans moving to Switzerland where they are very welcome and pay low taxes.

Yep I agree this idea that you should have exemption or that you have to prove you’re infertile etc… is crazy.

Shown by the number of cases people are already coming up with where the system would collapse (like how do you prove xyz, why would A have to pay if it’s B who is infertile etc…)

A lot of those answers are fuelled by the pain of infertility, how unfair it all is and that system would just add another layer to it. Making the injustice even more painful. Like youre bern punished for the very thing youre already struggling with in the first place.

I notice that the german system does NOT go there though. very wisely.
And is build around a system thatbALREADY expects children to financially support their parents. very different from what you're referrimg to.

I said “frequently” not “always”.

So

“tax the rich” = bad

”tax the childless” = a ok.

Ok well we’ll just eat each other then.

Rich people move (or stay) wherever they want regardless of what taxes they are forced to pay. We need to stop fucking pandering to them.

What about people who are childless not by choice but not knowingly infertile?

Or those infertile but who never sought assisted reproduction techniques.

Agreed.

The poster has already clarified that they expect people to go through invasive tests otherwise they’ll just have to pay up.

If I had to pay this infertility tax, would it be ring fenced for my care when I’m older? Or will it go towards people who did have kids but their kids can’t or don’t want to provide care for them?

That’s assuming the children he’ll though? I know plenty who don’t. I kind of feel like the owness is on everyone

The point is that this policy is divisive. It invites comparisons of circumstances and inevitably what follows is the whataboutery and sense of grievance

Right, and in my case where DH is infertile, and I'm not, how does that work? What if he dies or we divorce? I'm 47, no kids for us.

We chose not to do IVF because we required donor sperm and didn't want to get into the legal issues there. We were refused adoption because I have chronic migraine. We chose not to foster children because it's not the solution to infertility.

No. Taxing the rich will in many cases lead to them leaving a therefore paying nothing.
Charging extra to people more likely to need help with care home fees isn't the same as general tax. It's more insurance that you have to pay.

Honestly this is such a small.minded ridiculous view that gets trotted out on mumsnet all the time. You did benefit from education, healthcare as a baby, maternity care for your mother. These are all benefits for the child. Because a child is a person, not a possession owned by its parents. So NO you should not get a rebate for not using those services because you did use them.

I think any form of policy around having children feels inherently uncomfortable, as procreation is such thing of nature and should be something people want or don't want freely, however if we want to live in a society which has some state provision drawn from taxation, this is the kind of policy that must exist to address an imbalance tbh.

Germany have amazing childcare provision, so cheap compared to the UK, so make it easier to raise a family there. My brother in law lives in Berlin and honestly if I lived there and not London, I'd probably have a second child as I could a tually afford it without bankrupting us on those early 4 years.

Except not everyone gets child benefit

It's just another ridiculous far-right idea. A bit like the Nazi 'Kinder Kirche Kuche' crap. It's designed to put women in their place, not to solve any taxation or elder care problems.

And all a bit Handmaid Tale-like.

And men who have opted out of family life, caring for neither their children or parents might get the discount.

Just “uncomfortable” at having women pay more tax for being infertile?

Why not address an imbalance of affordable childcare by charging people with kids more? Would that balance not work?

I mean the ones who aren’t infertile but still unable to have children.

It's a terrible idea, and completely overlooks all the reasons why someone may not have had children, which are beyond an individual's control.

And it valorises men who have various children with various mothers, but do nothing to raise those children. Whereas it demonises the "selfish" women who haven't given birth.

Simply reproducing doesn't turn anyone into a model citizen.