Marriage penalty to go: Does individual taxation work?

Marriage penalty to be abolished: Does individual taxation work?

The aggregation of the incomes of both spouses in the context of family taxation leads to a higher tax burden via the tax rate progression than in the case of individually taxed earners. This puts dual-earner couples at a disadvantage, in some cases a massive one, compared to concubinates (the so-called "marriage penalty").

The roots of the current law date back to a time when concubinage was still prohibited and the wife was only allowed to pursue gainful employment with the consent of her husband. Society has changed a lot since then: today there are more and more dual-earner couples, which is why the call to abolish the system of family taxation and the associated marriage penalty is getting louder and louder.

Whether the initiative for individual taxation can remedy the grievances is a matter of controversy, as the article by our two SwissLegal tax experts Nathalie Urban and Jörg Frei in today's NZZ edition on the topic of "Saving Taxes" shows.

Read the full article under the following link (for download).

We wish you an exciting read!