German calls for new tax on childless couples and singles

For decades, whenever the German government needed more cash - kind of all the time - some conservatives would pull out the proposal to tax childless couples and single adults.

Over the years, these conservatives have refined their arguments, and we will present the lessons learned in this post.

The basic justification goes somewhat like this: birth rates are so low that the country's population will shrink drastically while life expectancy is rising, this combination threatens the future of the government retirement benefits program (Social Security) because fewer young people will have to support a growing number of older people.

The proponents of the tax went to great lengths to stick to this exact script because of, you guessed it, the Nazis.

The Nazis firmly believed the world needed more Germans and set out to reward families with large numbers of children. The most well known policy consisted of the introduction of the Cross of Honor of the German Mother. It was not a new idea, but if you know history, the Nazis took it to new heights. There was also a program that was an outright breeding program for the master race, called Lebensborn (well-spring of life).

Now, the short version of birth rates are so low that the country's population will shrink drastically is, of course, there are not enough Germans.

Lesson one for the not enough Germans camp was: Never use the short version.

Lesson two was: Blame childless couples for alleged future shortfalls in social security. Insinuate or proudly proclaim that not having a child is a choice, a selfish one. Dismiss objections with "you can always adopt" but leave out stringent adoption requirements.

This is as brilliant as it is evil because of two major factors:
a) Large swaths of earners do not pay any social security tax. First and foremost, German career civil servants pay no contribution to retirement benefits but get a pension paid out of the General Fund. Self-employed and others pay no mandatory social security tax either but are eligible for the minimum benefits if they are poor later on.
b) The German taxable maximum for social security is at about 60 000 Euros per year, making the U.S. maximum, criticized as low,  of just under 120 000 in 2015 seem humongous.

Lesson three: Calculate the cost of raising a child, then claim this should be seen as avoided costs, hence a "kind of extra income" for childless couples. Then state that fairness, of course, would really call for clawing back some of this advantage.

There are, as any parent knows, real costs to raising a child. How high is the cost?

This is wonderfully fuzzy, with no clear upper limit. You take that cost, for example, one recently advanced figure was 4 500 Euros a year, and voila, you have a baseline for the new tax.
You must not overplay this cost card because of the government's many family support programs. Monthly cash allowances, income tax benefits, free health insurance until age 26 (premiums are the same for parents and childless people), free or subsidized child care, free education from K1 through Master's degree, subsidized mortgages, etc. are all quoted by the childless as proof that they subsidize your kids. In which case, you should immediately proceed to Lesson Two (future entitlements).

But you cannot tax a fictitious advantage!

Yes, they can, and this is how:
Do not call it a tax but a levy. The Germans recently managed to rebrand their radio and TV license fee as a levy. As such, under German law, the exact same amount of contribution for the exact same purpose can be collected from an arbitrarily large base, because you no longer have to own a radio, TV, or - just to make sure, they are Germans after all - a computer, smart phone, tablet, or any device that can play a few seconds of TV or radio content.

So, you stop calling it officially a tax, you call it a levy. Never mind that everybody calls it a tax, the law will say levy.

The final step - incidentally the reason why we write this post - is to find a better justification than the worn out not enough Germans argument.

The record number of refugees!

A levy on childless couples to pay for the cost of housing refugees.

All you need to do now is disarm the incontestable argument that German tax revenues are at an all time high, having increased by some 6% compared to last year.

To do that, enter some mumble about bailing out Greece, again.