2024-07-23 00:56:20
The coalition has been arguing about basic child benefits for months. Some benefits for children are now to be increased – but whether the original plan will be implemented is more than questionable.
According to the president of the social association VdK, Verena Bentele, the basic child benefit has little chance of being implemented in its originally planned form. “As a civil society, as an alliance, we will continue to promote and pursue the project. I am rather pessimistic that it will be addressed politically again in the near future,” she told the “taz” newspaper.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) recently rejected the introduction of basic child benefit according to the Greens’ original plans. At the same time, he announced that he wanted to increase child benefit and the immediate child supplement for needy families by five euros each on January 1, 2025. The child allowance is also to be increased – and thus the tax burden for families will be reduced. Green parliamentary group vice-chairman Andreas Audretsch called the plans an “important financial basis for the start of basic child benefit”.
SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich has now stressed that there will be an “introduction to basic child benefit” during this legislative period. “Those who depend on basic child benefit for their children should find it easier to find their way to support in the sometimes confusing administrative system,” he told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group.
Regarding the increases, Bentele said that they were not bad, but had nothing to do with basic child benefit. “They do not change the fundamental problem that families in which parents earn more are relieved more by tax allowances than families with little money.”
When asked what should best be implemented after the summer, Bentele mentioned centralizing the application process. Families should not have to submit applications for their children at many different locations, but only at one location. “We should also discuss whether the tax allowances for children should be reduced. This would not improve support for the wealthy,” said the VdK president. Unfortunately, she cannot imagine that such significant changes are still possible at the moment.
Bentele accused the traffic light coalition of not being sufficiently willing to reach an agreement on child safety. The SPD and FDP had “made it quite easy to just point the finger at what is bad.”
The basic child benefit is included in the coalition agreement and is considered the Greens’ social prestige project. The social reform was originally intended to bundle existing benefits such as child benefit, benefits from the citizen’s allowance for children or the child supplement.