The tax and fiscal reforms headed by German finance minister Matthias Erzberger in 1919 and 1920 fundamentally reshaped German public finances. The total tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, or tax-to-GDP ratio, doubled and increased continually until the end of World War II. Since the 1950s, the...

Two traditional options for reforming Ehegattensplitting, the joint taxation of married couples with full income splitting, are de facto income splitting (Realsplitting) or individual taxation with a transferable personal allowance. However, these proposals do not significantly reduce the...