Life expectancy: judgment: gender for life maintenance calculation allowed

The Federal Fiscal Court has a cancellation of the introduction of a unit stable in Germany equally. In a revision procedure for the generous gift of an entrepreneur to his children, the II Senate ruled that the usual gender -specific death boards do not violate the constitutional discrimination ban.

Dying boards are the calculations of the rest of the life expectancy used by the pension fund and other insurers. Since women live longer than men on average, the deathboards are separated by gender.

Individual case with a potentially great effect

The procedure dealt with a tax dispute of a son with his tax office, which could have had indirect effects far beyond the individual case. The 74-year-old father living in North Rhine-Westphalia had given his children shares in a GmbH in 2014, but reserved a lifelong usufruct right in order to continue to be able to continue to decide freely about the company’s fortunes. The plaintiff was a son whose share of the company was worth almost 782,000 euros.

The plaintiff was not enough for 345,000 euros in taxes

Since the children are co -owners in such cases, but cannot switch and act as desired, the tax offices grant a tax deduction in calculating the gift tax. The death boards come into play: a significant factor in the capital value of life -long usufruct rights is the remaining life expectancy of the gift.

In the specific case, the father had to live for almost eight and a half years for men. The tax office deducted a good 345,000 euros from the value of the gifted company, which the plaintiff did not have to tax.

The II. Senate does not see men discriminated against

But that was not enough for the man: he argued that the gender -specific death panel violated the ban on discrimination. The financial background: Since women live longer, the rest of the life expectancy of a woman is also higher at the age of 74. If there were a unit dodging table for women and men, the mean would come out. The remaining life expectancy of a man would at least extend a little mathematically, and in the specific case the tax deduction would presumably have been a little higher.

The man had already lost in the first instance before the Cologne Finance Court. Now the II Senate of the highest German finance court also ruled that separate ties by gender do not violate the Basic Law for the purposes of inheritance and gift tax.

Different judgment would have employed the pension fund and insurance companies nationwide

The trial in front of the Federal Finance Court only dealt directly about the determination of the gift tax of a single wealthy plaintiff. However, a decision that separate deathboards are unconstitutional after gender would have had an impact on health insurance, pension insurance and life insurance throughout Germany.