LGBT

xchrom

(108,903 posts) Fri Jun 7, 2013, 10:03 AM Jun 2013

{germany}Gay Rights: Government To Expedite Same-Sex Tax Law

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-government-plans-to-rapidly-pass-same-sex-tax-law-a-904351.html

Thursday's high court ruling in Germany that gay couples living in civil partnerships must be granted the same tax benefits as heterosexual married couples hardly came as a surprise. Court President Andreas Vosskuhle had hinted strongly in February that such a ruling was coming.

The timing of the ruling, however, has left Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives scrambling to quickly pass a civil partnership tax law before the summer parliamentary recess, which begins in a month. On Friday morning, conservative lawmakers in Berlin agreed to introduce a bill as early as next week.
The court demanded that joint filing benefits be extended to gay couples retroactively to the year 2001. Given that all opposition parties in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, are in favor of increased rights for same-sex couples living in civil partnerships, the law's passage is likely to be a mere formality.

But within Merkel's governing coalition -- made up of her Christian Democrats (CDU), their more conservative Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) -- a debate has once again erupted as to whether the government should go even further and grant same-sex couples all privileges currently granted opposite-sex couples. And it is a debate which could attract unwanted attention to Merkel's conservatives ahead of the general election this fall.