I sat and watched a German public chat show last night....Hart Aber Fair (9:00 PM, on Channel One, ARD).
The topic? Taxation upon German families.
The center guest was a mid-40's guy who with his wife...make in the 50,000 Euro range together....have three kids (a lot by German standards)....and they pay near 14-percent of their income on income tax. You can add in social pension, health-care, etc....and roughly forty-percent of their income is gone. The guy points out....with three kids....it's expensive.
What he didn't point out is that the sales tax is out there as well (19-percent) and various other taxes filter through the system.
Four political figures stood at the table with the moderator. CDU, FDP, Linke Party and SPD.
It really didn't matter....they all felt his pain and talked about some impending tax modification or reform. Probably something that Germans have heard yearly since 1945.
Sympathy was offered and promises suggested but really....they can't do much of anything. They've got way too many 'gifts' laying around with the word 'promise' on the label and have to tax the heck out of Germans to 'gift' them back with the tax revenue.
You'd have to walk out on the stage with a fresh new prospective and just say....you know....we are cutting the distribution out to states and cities by 10-percent next year, and bringing the sales tax back down to 15-percent within one year, with the intention of a 11-percent tax being the permanent sales tax.
The thing is....you can't find political folks with that mindset anymore. You'd have to fire all six political parties in the Bundestag and get a whole new prospective on the purpose of taxation.
It was interesting to watch the four political folks fidget with the guy....obviously, this middle-class guy had a fairly big grumble to make and this was his platform for an hour. In the end, you realize why no one really wants to have two or three kids these days....they can't afford it.
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