Come on people, get having more kids before we go extinct!
Swiss people have moved away from churches of all denominations and the government refuses to do away with the marriage penalty. So no surprise here.
If a stable population is desirable then more needs to be done to aid families in having more children.
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Having kids does put a dent into ones lifestyle. Not to mention that the ungrateful brats never listen, never take advice and think they know better.
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Marriage is taxed to subsidize single parents.
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Switzerland for now survives by immigration. Donât forget to sell your real estate by 2040.
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Same all over the developed world⌠Rising prices mean that having kids is way to expensive.
The future will mean that rich people will have the budget for a few kids, the poor will punch out a lot of sprogs because the government will support them and yourself, the more you have the more you get in benefits and as unemployed on benefits there isnt much to do except screw and make more.
The middle class wont be able to afford any because, one: too expensive, two: earn to much to qualify for benefits.
So, the solution? Immigration without assimilation because forcing immigrants to integrate would be racist, and we cant have that.
The poor are to blame. Benefits are to blame. Immigrants are to blame. The middle classes whine. Life goes on as normal.
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Isnât the move to individual taxation getting closer?
High time the marriage penalty was abolished, but it seems that the proposed reform might simply disadvantage a different group.
As a one income married couple, individual taxation looks to raise our taxes, at least according to my back-of-the-envelope calculation based on proposals I have read.
More worrying is the potential effect individual taxation in CH could have on our US taxes.
Of course, eliminating the tax penalty will mean that âsinglesâ will pay more.
Yes, it will not be eliminating a marriage penalty, but eliminating the âsingles benefitâ.
Maybe it would be an opportunity to raise taxes and make both married and single people worse off.
The easiest way would be to require all co-habitants to pay the marriage penalty, but that requires CH to recognise common-law marriage principles.
Easiest way would be just to have a single tax tariff and apply that to everybody. Just use the most expensive tariff and scrap joint tax filings and have everybody make a single filing.
That way, it doesnât matter if you are single, married, living together or whatever. You just pay tax on what you have earned. No benefit to husbands having a non-working wife. No penalty to DINKs because they are married or not married.
Birth rates are below replacement ratios now in most of the world except Africa and parts of the Middle East. I doubt it is a taxation issue.
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Challenges of this nature rarely have a single cause.
The marriage penalty in Switzerland is one factor but others like lack of affordable childcare, job insecurity, income inequality are others.
If I was 25, in love, with an entry level job Iâd likely decide that kids were simply unaffordable.
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Falling birth rates should be welcomed. The increases in human population were unsustainable. The only issue seems to be that âtheyâ are reproducing faster than âweâ are. That will change. All countries will have to face having a larger percentage of older citizens. The solution is not more children.
What then?
Taking more taxes from the families with stay-at-home moms and encouraging women to go to work or to work more hours would definitely lead to the increase of the birthrate.
We are a married couple and we will be paying a few thousands more of taxes. They just moved the tax burden from one kind of married couples to the other.
What is needed is a communal society where everyone works, no one is taxed, all are provided for with food, housing, health coverage, etc. and plenty of time to socialize. Then there will be plenty of kids having kids with 15 and 16.
Good question. Large families have been part of the human make-up for centuries. It is the growth of the middle class that brings family size down. Present low birth rates in the western world are a good thing, they do not need changing. Our attitude to wealth accumulation does.