Public authorities should treat the same things equally

As a rule, the tax office does not recognize any differences. In principle, income is treated the same – regardless of how difficult or effortless it was achieved, or whether the paid service is considered socially particularly useful or less useful by some politicians or media.

The Treasury sums up all income to form taxable income and taxes it according to the uniform tax rate. For reasons of practicability, a kind of flat rate of 25 percent has only applied to capital income since 2009 – one quarter for the state, three quarters for the investor. The main reason for this was that the previous calculation of dividends was not EU-compatible.

Beyond the proportional taxation of capital income, the income tax rate is progressive, with the average burden increasing as taxable income increases.