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Well, are you one of them? To the top 10 percent of the population? So the rich, who own more than half of the assets in Germany? Or rather to the lower 50 percent, that is half of the Germans, which together account for only three percent of the assets? And if so, how can you change that?

These are not class warfare slogans. I quote the sober figures of the Bundesbank, presented last week in the asset report. And then added, that they should rather estimate the wealth of the rich and super rich too low. The super-rich were not included in the underlying survey in 2017. And the rich would have less involved.

Fun Fact: Many of those who belong to the wealthy in the country after the survey, do not want to admit that. Asked for their self-assessment, only three percent of the top 20 percent of the wealth statistics known to belong to this preferred group.

Some commentators mocked that this was the Merz effect. Income Millionaire Friedrich March had classified itself in 2018 namely in the "upper middle class". That is very sympathetic. If you see yourself as a middle class, you believe that you can increase your own wealth through your own work. And not that it's all about preserving your own wealth. It was a bit out of the way of Merz.

Statistically, there will always be the bottom 50 percent in wealth distribution. But it should be the goal that these people in the end significantly more than the currently only three percent of total assets belong.

First of all, a variety of political decisions are needed, which can already be seen from the fact that, despite all diligence of the people, wealth is much more unevenly distributed than in many other European countries. Or as the Bundesbank writes: Germany is one of the countries within Europe with a particularly "high unequal distribution of wealth".

If you want to start with this goal in your private finances - here are four tips .

1) Ask for more money from the boss. Anyway, if he has the money, so the company is running well. And many companies have been doing pretty well over the past decade. If you have the choice: Find a job that is well paid.

2) Throw your service providers no money behind. Almost everything is better and cheaper: For example, you can save 200 euros a year on electricity, gas and mobile phone contracts. Year for year. Poor households are asked to pay extra for electricity and gas, as well as checking accounts and insurance premiums.

3) You should invest money that you do not need in the long term in a global equities ETF / index fund. This has brought the most return since we looked at this (since 1975). Incidentally, so do the rich.

4) And then there is the question with the property: Especially real estate owners have become significantly richer in the past few years without their own intervention. If their own four walls are part of their life plan, then they go through that. Some people also become wealthy through real estate forced saving because the installment needs to be raised each month. Buy cheap is still possible today, if not in the Munich, Hamburg or downtown Berlin. And cheap finance is just going well.

This may be your own contribution to moving the balance sheet. However, some political answers to the unequal distribution of wealth should not be ignored. The following is necessary now:

  • The top tax rate today is much lower than in Helmut Kohl's time, while at the same time skilled workers and study councils have to pay the top tax rate as singles. Pointed: Top earners pay less. Skilled workers pay more. This can not be.
  • It can not be that in Germany increased prosperity is taxed lower without their own contribution than hard work on the construction, in the nursing home or at Aldi. The flat-rate withholding tax is abolished. (This is even in the coalition agreement, but have you heard of the subject?)
  • In many other European countries, more people live in their own homes and homes. Wherever it succeeds, even people with not so high income to make the dream of their own home, that helps in any case in the distribution of wealth. Targeted promotion without watering can, favorable building land for living, long-term lease, the possibilities are far from exhausted.
  • It can not be under distribution aspects also that the inheritance of large fortunes is often without much estate tax, but quite legal as with family Quandt. Not to mention the activities of the Engelhorn family. This is not really about Grandma's and Grandpa's terraced house. Inheriting is not an achievement, least of all when money is lacking to finance schools, bike paths, railways, fiber optics, roads and police.

By the way, some really rich see it that way. Warren Buffet, the legendary multi-billionaire, has promised most of his fortune to foundations - much of it is to go to the Gates Foundation. His children are well looked after, argues Buffet.

And for the taxation of wealth basically meant the big old man among the billionaires: My secretary has a higher marginal tax rate than me. That really can not be.