The committee's recommendation for a decision and report
Once the committee has discussed the bill and decided on a recommendation for the plenary, the rapporteurs begin the second part of their work. They submit a written report to the plenary of the Bundestag in which they present the course the discussions have taken in the lead committee and the committees asked to give their opinions. In their report, the rapporteurs focus in particular on reasons why the committee may have deviated from the Government's bill. They are also obliged to include in the report the views of minorities who were outvoted.
The report starts with the committee's recommendation to the plenary. The committee may recommend that the bill be adopted, rejected or - provided all parliamentary groups agree - that the bill be shelved. If adoption of the bill is recommended, the committee also states whether the bill should be adopted in its original version, with the amendments recommended by the committee, or as the version of the bill adopted by the committee and attached to the recommendation for a decision. The recommendation is preceded by an introductory page with the same structure as that of bills, as previously described. It also sets out the majority by which the bill was adopted in the committee. In the following extracts from the committee report, the voting patterns of the parliamentary groups on the Finance Committee are shown under the section entitled "B. Solution" of the introductory page. The recommendation for a decision and the report appear as printed papers and are distributed to all Members of the Bundestag.
German Bundestag | Printed paper 16/11172 |
2 December 2008 | |
Recommendation of the Finance Committee (7th committee) for a decision on the bill presented by the Federal Government Draft Act for the Promotion of Families and Household-related Services (Family Benefits Act - Familienleistungsgesetz)
A. Problem The tax allowances in respect of dependent children, child benefit and tax relief for household-related employment for which welfare contributions are payable and for household-related services are considered to be too low. In addition, more payments are required to meet the school needs of pupils at the start of the school year, since transfer payments do not take account of these needs. B. Solution In particular, the Finance Committee recommends the following amendments to the bill:
The bill was approved as amended, with the CDU/CSU and SPD groups voting in favour, the Alliance 90/The Greens group voting against and the FDP and Left Party groups abstaining. C. Alternatives None D. Financial effects
E. Other costs
F. Administrative costs
Recommendation The Bundestag is requested to take the following decision: to adopt the bill - printed papers 16/10809, 16/11001 and 16/ 11125, paragraph 1.6 - in the form shown in the synopsis set out below | |
Eduard Oswald | Gabriele Frechen |
Synopsis showing the draft of an Act for the Promotion of Families and Household-related Services {Family Benefits Act - Familienleistungsgesetz] - printed papers 16/10809,16/11001,16/11125, paragraph 1.6 -with the decisions of the Finance Committee {7th committee) | |
German Bundestag - 16th electoral term | Printed paper 16/11172 |
Bill
Draft Act for the Promotion of Families and Household-related Services (Family Benefits Act -Familienleistungsgesetz) The Bundestag has adopted the following law with the consent of the Bundesrat: Article 1 Amendment of the Income Tax Act (Einkommensteuergesetz) The Income Tax Act, as promulgated on 19 October 2002 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 4210 and Federal Law Gazette I (2003), p. 79) and amended by Article . . . of the Act of . . . (Federal Law Gazette I, p. ...), shall be amended as follows: | 1. The summary of contents shall be amended as follows: Decisions of the 7th committee
Draft Act for the Promotion of Families and Household-related Services (Family Benefits Act -Familienleistungsgesetz) The Bundestag has adopted the following law with the consent of the Bundesrat: Article 1 Amendment of the Income Tax Act (Einkommensteuergesetz) The Income Tax Act, as promulgated on 19 October 2002 (Federal Law Gazette I, p. 4210 and Federal Law Gazette I (2003), p. 79) and amended by Article . . . of the Act of . . . (Federal Law Gazette I, p. ...), shall be amended as follows: 1. unchanged |
This particular recommendation from the Finance Committee could not be drawn up in such a way that the amendments called for by the Committee were incorporated directly into the text of the recommendation submitted to the plenary. That is only possible if the Committee's amendments affect only a few points and can be presented in a brief and concise form. In such cases, the recommendation to the plenary usually states that the Bundestag is requested to "adopt the bill subject to the proviso that...". In this case, the recommendation states that the Bundestag is requested to adopt the bill "in the form shown in the synopsis set out below". This applies particularly to recommendations which concern very comprehensive bills or which, as in this case, propose a large number of amendments. The Government bill and the version recommended by the committee are then set out side by side (the "synopsis") to enable those examining them to identify which parts of the original bill should, according to the committee's recommendation, be adopted as they stand or be amended. The plenary of the Bundestag generally accepts the recommendations of the lead committee. Therefore, contrary to what one might expect, given the division of the Bundestag into a parliamentary majority and an opposition, very few Government bills are adopted by a majority of the Members of the German Bundestag without any amendments. Rather, the Members from the ruling parties, which also form the majority on every committee, examine the bill from "their" Government very critically and, in more than 50 per cent of cases, introduce amendments. Thus, although there is a basic political consensus between the majority parties in the Bundestag and the Government, these parties share with the opposition parties the task of exercising parliamentary scrutiny.
The committee's recommendation is followed by the committee's report which, in this case, was drawn up by four rapporteurs and may appear as part of the same printed paper or - as was the case here - as a separate printed paper. The first part of the report describes the course of committee deliberations and in particular the views of the committees asked for an opinion by the lead committee and the motions for amendments tabled, adopted or overturned in the lead committee. In our example, the report shows that the Finance Committee considered during its deliberations a petition from a citizen concerning the introduction of a "school requisites package", as was subsequently recommended by the committee. The description of the course of the committee deliberations is followed by the reasons for the recommendation, in particular for the amendments to the Government bill recommended by the lead committee.
German Bundestag 16th electoral term | Printed paper 16/11191 |
| 3 December 2008 |
Report by the Finance Committee (7th committee) on the bill presented by the Federal Government: Draft Act for the Promotion of Families and Household-related Services (Family Benefits Act - Familienleistungs¬gesetz) Report by Members of the Bundestag Patricia Lips, Lydia Westrich, Carl-Ludwig Thiele and Dr Barbara Holl | |
A. General observations I. Referral During its 187th sitting on 13 November 2008, the German Bundestag referred the Federal Government's bill, printed paper 16/10809, to the Finance Committee as the lead committee. The bill was also referred to the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs, the Committee on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Committee on Health, the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment and the Budget Committee for their opinion. The bill was also referred to the Budget Committee under Rule 96 of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag. The Budget Committee will provide separate information on this referral. The response made by the Federal Government to the opinion of the Bundesrat and communicated in printed paper 16/11001 was retrospectively referred to the same committees under Rule 80(3) of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag. Notice of this referral was given in printed paper 16/11125 of 28 November 2008. Subject to the referral of the bill, the Finance Committee began its deliberations at its 105th meeting, held on 12 November 2008, and concluded them at its 109th meeting on 2 December 2008. In addition, the committee conducted a public hearing at its 106th meeting on 24 November 2008. II. Main substance of the proposal
III. Hearing On 24 November 2008, the Finance Committee conducted a public hearing on the bill. The following individual experts, associations and institutions had the opportunity to deliver their opinions:
The results of the hearing were incorporated into the committee's deliberations. The minutes of the public discussion, including the submitted written opinions, are accessible to the public. IV. Opinions of the consulted committees The Committee on Labour and Social Affairs discussed the Federal Government's bill on 2 December 2008, at its 107th meeting, and recommended the adoption of the bill with the amendments tabled by the CDU/CSU and SPD groups, the CDU/CSU and SPD groups having voted in favour of this recommendation and the groups of the FDP, The Left Party and Alliance 90/The Greens having abstained. In addition, the committee recommended acknowledgement of the communication from the Federal Government. . . . {opinions of other consulted committees) V. Course and outcome of deliberations in the lead committee The Finance Committee recommended the adoption of the bill with the amendments tabled by the committee, the CDU/CSU and SPD groups having voted in favour of this recommendation, the group of Alliance 90/The Greens having voted against it and the groups of the FDP and The Left Party having abstained. At the start of the deliberations on the bill in the Finance Committee, the CDU/ CSU and SPD groups divided the bill into three components: - the increase in existing benefits and allowances resulting from the rise in child benefit and in the tax allowance for dependent children and from the extension of fiscal support for household-related employment in respect of which welfare contributions are payable and for household-related services; - the merging of statutory provisions and the simplification of legal rules on tax relief for the cost of child care and for expenditure on household-related contributory employment and on household-related services; - setting a new priority through the introduction of an additional payment - the 'school-requisites package' -for the schooling of children of recipients of transfer payments under Book II and Book XII of the German Social Code. The relief these measures would bring to families was unreservedly welcomed. Special emphasis, it was said, should be placed on the increase in child benefit corresponding to the tax allowance, which would benefit families with children which did not pay enough tax to claim the full allowance and was therefore an essential instrument of social policy. The committee also expressed satisfaction that, despite the extension of fiscal support for household-related | services, this support had been successfully preserved as a deduction from taxable income, which was the only way to ensure that even low-income households could benefit from it. The introduction of the 'school-requisites package' was also welcomed as a form of assistance for low-income households that welfare associations had long been advocating. The SPD group, however, explicitly regretted that the payment was limited to the first ten years of schooling. The CDU/CSU group, for its part, regretted that the age limit for tax exemption in respect of payments made by employers for the accommodation and care of employees' children had not been raised from 7 to 14; at the public hearing held by the committee {see section III above), this had clearly emerged as a way to focus tax relief on low earners. The FDP group began by welcoming the bill as a step, albeit a far from adequate step, in the right basic direction but criticised the fact that the planned measures did nothing to resolve the problems of the educationally disadvantaged sections of the population but in some cases even exacerbated them and that they were insufficient to counterbalance tax rises, such as the increase in VAT, that have hit low-income households. Moreover, the proposal did not address the urgently needed root-and-branch reform of the financial and fiscal support of families with children. The FDP group had long been calling for a reappraisal and restructuring of family benefits. Although there was fundamental cross-party consensus on this point, the Federal Government was not getting to grips with this task. The group of The Left Party regretted the minimal extent to which it had been possible to amend the Federal Government's bill in the parliamentary legislative process. It emphasised that its own proposals were not based on political wishful thinking but targeted the implementation of the rulings delivered by the Constitutional Court demanding tax exemption of subsistence income. At the public hearing, several experts had confirmed that the present tax allowances for dependent children were far from adequate means of achieving that goal. An increase in the standard rates for children would therefore be warmly welcomed. It was important that the age of children should also be taken into account in setting these rates. With regard to the extension of the tax relief for household-related contributory employment and for household-related services, the Left Party group regretted that scarcely any data were available. This made it difficult to assess the extent to which this tax relief would actually benefit households on the one hand and people in household-related employment on the other. The major task now was to establish the legalisation of household-related employment situations as the aim of this fiscal subsidisation and to align any additional measures with that aim. This would benefit people in household-related employment as well as relieving society of any costs arising from the absence of social-insurance cover for that group of employees. The group of Alliance 90/The Greens said that it was not credible to proclaim the intention of assisting families whilst barely meeting the constitutional requirements in the field of fiscal policy. That neither adequately supported families with children nor helped to boost economic growth. The system of tax allowances for dependent children and the reckonability of child benefit against transfer payments, moreover, meant that high-income households would benefit more from the increase in tax allowances under this bill than low earners or welfare recipients. Accordingly, the group of Alliance 90/ The Greens called for a radical review of the standard rates for children in the jobseekers' subsistence allowance scheme (Arbeitslosengeld II), including consideration of a subsistence allowance for children. The group had tabled a motion to this effect, which would be put to a recorded vote at second reading. The Bundesrat, moreover, had also unanimously supported a review of the standard rates. The group of Alliance 90/The Greens hoped that the Federal Government would respect this wish. . . . (there follows a presentation of the approved and rejected amendments) The Petitions Committee forwarded a petition on the Federal Government's bill, requesting the comments of the committee under Rule 109 of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag. The Finance Committee took account of the petition in its deliberations. The petitioner had requested assistance for lone parents in the form of a special payment at the start of the school year. The bill proposed a change in the law that would provide an additional payment of €100 for school requisites at the start of the school year under Books II and XII of the German Social Code for pupils in years 1 to 10. The introduction of a 'school-requisites package' in section 24a of Book II and section 28a of Book XII of the Social Code, as envisaged in Articles 3(2) and 4(3) of the Federal Government's bill and recommended by the Finance Committee, related to the petitioner's request. B. Specific observations Article 1 (Amendment of the Income Tax Act) Paragraph 3 (first sentence of section 9(5) of the Income Tax Act) Rewording of the amendment arising from the concentration of the rules on child-care costs into a single provision. |
Berlin, 3 December 2008 |
|
Patricia Lips | Carl-Ludwig Thiele |
Lydia Westrich | Dr Barbara Holl |
Before considering the rest of the legislative process, a further point must be made about the work of the committees. The committees are not simply required to discuss bills referred to them but may discuss all matters which fall within their area of competence. Each committee therefore closely follows and monitors the policies of the particular ministry to which it corresponds. In this context, the committees of the Bundestag are sometimes said to be "co-governing" bodies. Only by dealing constantly and in detail with ministerial policy can the committees acquire the necessary specialist knowledge and political insight to enable them properly to assess individual bills or other formal motions from within the Bundestag and to process them properly. Thus, the committees do not "wait", as it were, for bills referred to them from the plenary but deal continuously with the policies of the corresponding ministries. They devote special attention to complex and particularly controversial bills as well as to cases of error and mismanagement, should these arise.