Marriage penalty initiatives lack signatures: Pfister must tremble

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When you commit to something forever, you feel it in your wallet. Not only because of the costs of the wedding ring, cake and party, but especially afterwards: the so-called marriage fine affects married couples, for example, when it comes to taxes. After the wedding, the respective incomes are added together. Many couples therefore have to pay more taxes than if the two spouses were taxed individually.

There are also problems with the AHV pension: unmarried couples each receive a separate individual pension, while for married people the pension is capped at 1.5 times the individual pension.

The center wanted to change this with two popular initiatives. But now the party around President Gerhard Pfister (61) is sounding the alarm: so far only around 90,000 signatures have been collected – and time is running out: the deadline expires at the end of March. According to the center, when certifying the signatures, some municipalities had difficulty distinguishing between the popular initiative “Yes to fair AHV pensions for married couples” and “Yes to fair federal taxes for married couples.”

To create an initiative, 100,000 valid signatures are needed. But because people sometimes sign twice, sign incorrectly or have no voting rights, the initiators plan a reserve for everyone. “We each need approximately 20,000 to 25,000 signatures to ensure that the two initiatives actually come into being,” the Center Party says.

“We may have underestimated the effort that a double initiative entails,” Mitte President Pfister told media representatives. However, it is also conceivable that the subject no longer receives as much priority among the supporters as other subjects. But you don’t want to analyze the failure yet. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that both initiatives overcome the obstacles.”

Individual tax

There is also movement in the field of taxes. The Federal Council wants to introduce individual taxation. In the future, everyone would have to file their own tax returns, including married couples. The Federal Council will present its draft law by March 2024, after which Parliament will decide. (dba/pt/bro)

Source:Blick