The rich win – or the poor lose

The center party wants to know again. She launched two initiatives on Tuesday with which she once again declared war on the marriage penalty. “No one should be discriminated against because of his chosen lifestyle,” party chairman Gerhard Pfister (60) emphasized to the media. In 2016, the center had failed in front of the people – also because the Federal Council had misinformed voters.

Now comes the next attempt: the center finally wants to abolish the marriage fine for the direct federal tax (due to the progression, married couples pay more than cohabiting couples in some cases) and for the AHV pension (married couples only receive 1.5 AHV pension) .

Groundbreaking tax dispute looms

But that is not everything. Parallel to the middle, the FDP women are calling on their own initiative for a system change towards individual taxation. In the future, each person, married or not, will have to fill out their own tax return.

This is the start of a tax dispute in federal Bern. And it has it all: not just because everyone in the country is affected. Both reforms would also have winners and losers. The bottom line is that it comes down to a very basic question: what lifestyle should the state promote with taxes?

High costs – benefiting a minority

The idea of ​​the center is easy to explain: the state should make two tax calculations for married couples – one according to the model for married couples and one as if the two were unmarried. The couple would then owe the lesser amount.

However, there is a huge caveat: for the tax authorities, the model does not only mean duplication. The initiative also costs the state a lot of money. The center itself assumes about two billion francs per year. And that for a minority.

Only high-income couples are affected by the marriage fine – from 15,000 francs per month. In contrast, two-thirds of working married couples enjoy a marriage bonus: they pay less federal tax than cohabiting couples with the same income. That has been calculated by the liberal think tank Avenir Suisse. For him, the conclusion is clear: the bottom line is that the Swiss tax system even subsidizes marriage.

Classic family model would lose…

Individual taxation is different: it would reduce the tax burden on second income – thus creating employment incentives, especially for women. The initiative would help to overcome the current shortage of skilled workers. According to Avenir Suisse, individual taxation could create about 50,000 full-time jobs or increase the employment rate of 300,000 women by 20 percent. And: It wouldn’t tear such a hole in the treasury.

But it has other drawbacks: economist Beat Hintermann of the University of Basel warns that a large part of the population could be among the losers. In fact, depending on how the initiative is implemented, a tax increase of a few percent of income could flourish – especially since the FDP women’s initiative offers no cushioning.

… just like low incomes

And individual taxation would also have other drawbacks. Tax expert Hintermann refers to a bachelor’s thesis he supervised. In a nutshell, the losers include the classic family model with single earners and especially low-income couples. On the other hand, high-income earners and couples earning about the same would benefit disproportionately: “So the introduction of individual taxation would increase income inequality.”

The center already recognizes new discrimination in the competition initiative, which it denounced in the media on Tuesday. The battle for reform is already in full swing.