Child benefit primarily for purchase instead of new construction

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The child benefit should actually boost the construction of new homes. But almost 90 percent of applications were made in 2018 for property purchases. From the perspective of the left, the law has thus failed to achieve its goal.

The child benefit is used by families primarily for the purchase of an existing house or a condominium. This emerges from a request by the Left MP Caren Lay to the Federal Government. Accordingly, 87.7 percent of all applications submitted up to and including November 2018 were for the purchase of "investment properties". Only about every eighth application was made for a new building.

Criticism of the left

Against this background, Lay criticized: "The child benefit clearly misses its purpose." Instead of stimulating the construction of new apartments, it subsidizes the purchase of existing houses. It primarily supports the middle class in the countryside. For Relaxation On the other hand, it does not worry about the low-income urban housing market.

The child benefit approved by the Bundestag in July last year has been in great demand to date. By the end of 2018, 56,435 family applications had been approved. The reason for the big run was, among other things, that the child benefit could be applied for retrospectively as of January 1, 2018.

Most applications from western German states

Most of the applications in 2018 came from the densely populated western German states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony and Bavaria. Only a few hundred applications were received from the city-states of Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. According to left-wing MP Lay, relief in the housing market is particularly urgently needed in large cities.

The child benefit is intended to help families acquire property. They receive a government subsidy for building a house or buying property. It is 1,200 euros per child per year. Payment is made over ten years. That makes 12,000 euros per child. Families and single parents with one child may have a maximum of 90,000 euros in taxable household income per year in order to receive the child benefit. For each additional child, the limit is 15,000 euros higher.

MDR CURRENT RADIO | January 20, 2019 | 10:30 am

Last updated: January 20, 2019, 11:51 a.m.

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9 comments

01/21/2019 3:25 p.m. Retiring questioner 9

These people do not move into unused or made habitable living space?

In a sense, it creates new living space or not?

They won’t be living in this living space as it sounds out here ?

01/20/2019 09:59 PM GoodName 8

It seems clear to me that so far only purchases and no new buildings benefit – new buildings cost time. That will probably be put into perspective by mid-2019. It is also positive if families can afford property – whether new or existing.

20.01.2019 16:22 Peter 7

@ 3 part: Don’t mess it up. The child benefit was a matter close to the heart of the CSU.
But nevertheless: I expressly agree with Normalo. The child benefit helps the normal earner to buy a property for his own use. And we know that property ownership is the best pension.
Only, I only partially agree with Normalo. Of course there is real estate speculation. However, the Building Code gives municipalities an effective means of counteracting this – the right of first refusal. Unfortunately, it is used too little except in Berlin.
And finally: As recently decided, the federal government is promoting social housing with billions in grants. In Leipzig, for example, the city is forcing real estate investors to build part of the planned apartments as social housing.

20.01.2019 16:17 questioning pensioner 6

The child benefit is a small part of what the children, despite child benefit, will cost to their parents or single parents until they grow up.

What childless people save in terms of time is huge.

Some couples do not want to have children at all or wait too long until the biological clock no longer works !

01/20/2019 3:58 PM Axel to Normalo (4) 5

You may come across a little bit self-assured in your reasoning. Unfortunately, however, you cannot ignore the fact that only 50,000 families are ‘supported’ with the child benefit, that is, REINE KLIENTELpolitik.

The BASIC LAW provides for EVERYONE living here, regardless of whether women, children or men, EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES in the form of the SOCIAL market economy, which is protected by the Basic Law.
That is why of
@part reference given at # 3
". Children and youth however, continue to be neglected, as the OECD stated. Family support should look different than simply forgetting the real needy."
MORE THAN AUTHORIZED!

Either WE are ALL Germans and subject US ALL to the norms and values of the German Basic Law or the German Basic Law does NOT apply and it continues to be operated on the back of MANY clientele policies FOR LESS.

01/20/2019 13:09 Normalo 4

What speaks against the fact that the middle class as the main bearer of the tax burden gets back at least something? The top performers are ripped off for tax purposes and then looked at badly if the legislator ensures that they are promoted, albeit quite cumbersome.
Which low earner has ever been able to buy a house? For them, social housing must be boosted. But the real estate lobby is turning against it, their speculation with land and rents could be jeopardized. So do not play the middle class and low earners against each other but ask the real estate sharks.

20.01.2019 12:45 part 3

Again, only a deficiency law under the SPD aegis that ignores poverty in the population and only promotes middle to upper income groups. The socio-cultural expansion of the entire infrastructure for children and adolescents, on the other hand, continues to be neglected, as the OECD has already stated. Family support should look different than simply forgetting the real needy.

20.01.2019 12:14 Jakob 2

The child benefit also discriminates against the many unintentionally childless couples. If the state promotes the purchase or construction of real estate, it is in fact directly promoting the acquisition of real estate. But he has to treat everyone equally, childless and large children. The state is also welcome to support families with children, but please without discriminating when designing childless families. A legal form of funding, for example, would simply be an increase in child benefit.

Apart from that, the state ultimately supports the construction industry with child benefit, without causing more construction, because capacities are currently fully utilized and therefore more demand is only possible at higher prices leads.

01/20/2019 12:03 PM Axel 1

Baukindergeld? The nonsense of the decade!

For decades, the Germans have been forced by a small sect of CDU / CSU and SPD-BONZEN to force a spouse splitting that only subsidizes marriage and from which only high-earning married couples WITHOUT children benefit.

The French have had family splitting for decades, from which ALL couples FOR and WITH children benefit.

Result with the same ideal number of children:
France: PLUS 6 million children
Germany: MINUS 2.3 million children

What actually happens here?
WHO has empowered German governments and parliaments to eliminate the sovereign?