I'd wager this is because more Kindergeld would increase spending - which means either more debt or an increase in taxes somewhere else, and with the current government that's not possible.

And considering the CDU probably has more parents than childless people as voters, i guess that's a demographic they can afford to offend?

Then again, maybe searching for logic in this trainwreck of a government is our mistake to begin with.

This would definitely be better. It'll avoid some scenarios I wrote about in my other comment

That could also work but then we still have to increase the elder care tax as a whole. In the end the result is the same. Childless people pay more effective tax (taxes - benefits) than parents.

Probably because even with your solution, there would still be a need to increase the amount everyone has to pay. That's still a hard sell.

By only making some people pay more, you're actually making it an easier sell because that limits the amount of people that will be upset because they personally will be affected. Those that aren't affected can be convinced with arguments.

If the purpose of the law is strictly to compensate from the strain a childless person puts on the pension system, and not to simply punish them for not having kids. Then I don't see the problem of involuntarily childless people getting taxed. The involuntarily and the voluntarily childless both get the same benefit of not having to pay for their kids and therefore would have the same ability to pay. And they both put the same strain on the pension system.

Taxing the rich is always good I agree. But regarding having kids only to avoid taxes. Do the pension payments really scale up to super rich level? Or do they have a max ceiling. I don't know exactly how Germany does it. But yes if the pension payments scale linearly with income that could be a major issue that's true.

The reason why a couple doesn't have children doesn't affect the financial situation. Hence anyone without children over the age of 23 has to pay more no matter the reason why they don't have children.

The point of the policy is not to punish anyone by the way, but to find money to care for the elderly. They just propose to take it from people who are at an unfair advantage right now. In Germany, having children means having less money than not having children.

Taxing the rich is something that the current German government is especially allergic to, so this policy is probably about the best we can have until the next elections.

If I'm to pay more for retirement because I don't have kids, then why shouldn't parents pay more for the education of their offspring?

You could absolutely argue that childcare and kindergarten are chiefly to the parents benefits but school is not. In fact when school was first made mandatory it was a huge blow to many parents as they lost another worker at home/ their farm. School is for the benefit of the children themselves and as a society at large. You benefit from kids being in school because you can live in a more educated society, also you yourself went to school so it's only fair you pay for others to also go to school.

But people who get kids already receive various financial benefits from the state in many countries. But it is usually framed as giving them money, instead of taking from everyone else. In the Netherlands you literally get money per child.

So if I were to reframe this tax as: "people with children get a tax deduction on their pensions", nobody would bet an eye, as similar benefits are already in place for them. But where does that money come from? Right; Tax payers. So, to give people with children a tax deduction, everyone else needs to pay more. Financially, you end up in the same situation as what is proposed here.