Faced with a rapidly worsening budget outlook, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) believes he has finally found a fresh source of revenue. By scrapping the long-standing “marriage-splitting” tax benefit -- a system that allows couples to pool income and reduce their tax bill -- he hopes to plug the ever-widening budget holes. It marks the preliminary climax of a tax hike debate designed less to fix Germany’s fiscal crisis than to relieve politicians from the pressure of implementing structural reforms.

In truth, this development comes as no surprise. The SPD has long sought to abolish marriage splitting. The measure is framed as a response to Germany’s structural deficit, which is projected to balloon to more than €170 billion by 2029 -- provided, of course, that the German economy does not sink even deeper into recession than it already has.

Ideology Masquerading as Fiscal Prudence

One must ask whether the recent public debate over inheritance tax hikes was nothing more than a test balloon, meant to measure how much additional burden the German population is willing to shoulder. Taken together, both initiatives -- the higher inheritance tax and the abolition of marriage splitting -- are perfectly complementary in the eyes of SPD ideologues. Both measures strike directly at a family and generational model regarded by the finance minister as “outdated” and now scheduled for fiscal liquidation.

The Social Democrats had long prepared themselves ideologically for this strike. And what else should one expect from a party that has, in large part, abandoned the........

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