The center, the PEV, the UDC and the UDF launched the referendum against individual taxation on Thursday. What they describe as a “tax deception” would create, according to them, “new inequalities”.
Currently, married couples pay more taxes for the same income than an unmarried couple. The Parliament, with a very short majority of the left and the PLR, supported in June the initiative of the PLR women and the counter-project of the Federal Council for individual taxation. These projects aim to correct the “criminalization of marriage”.
>> Read also: Parliament decides in favor of the individual taxation of married couples
But for the alliance, this taxation leads to new injustices for families and the middle class. Some “1.2 million people will have to pay more tax,” said national councilor Martin Hübscher (UDC/ZH).
“Dangerous decline”
“Individual taxation is presented as progress, but it constitutes a dangerous decline,” said the Valais national councilor and new president of the Philipp Center Matthias Bregy.
“Instead of correcting existing injustices and eliminating the disadvantages suffered by married couples and couples in registered partnership, it creates new ones. The married couples with a single income or with very unequal income would be imposed much more heavily than couples with two similar income,” criticized Valaisan.
For the president of the Pev Lilian Studer, it is not just that families who choose to personally take care of their children pay more taxes. And take a concrete example. A couple married to three children and an income of 150,000 francs spread 85% -15% would be more imposed than a couple in the same situation, but whose income is distributed equally.
According to her, the vast majority of the population has nothing to gain with individual taxation, because “it is households earning 300,000 francs or more who would really benefit from this change of system”.
![Lilian Studer, Philipp Matthias Bregy and Martin Hübscher at the press conference Thursday in Bern. [Keystone - Peter Klaunzer]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw== "Lilian Studer, Philipp Matthias Bregy and Martin Hübscher at the press conference Thursday in Bern. [Keystone - Peter Klaunzer]")
A bureaucratic monster
Parties also criticize a bureaucratic monster. Married couples should complete two statements. Administrations should deal with 1.7 million additional declarations, said Martin Hübscher. This will require more than 1,700 new tax agents.
The counter-project is also very complicated when it comes to declaring heritage. For the Zurichois, this amounts to carrying out a “financial divorce” each year.
ats/edel
