Taxing social security payments - a solution to the financial crisis?

Both taxation experts and policy-makers are nearly agreed on the necessity of placing a tax on social security benefits and not on contributions. The effects that this will have on employees, retirees and the public budget is examined firstly by Prof. Rolf Peffekoven, member of the German Council of Economic Advisors, who clearly favours such a tax. Prof. Wolfgang Wiegard, Professor of Economics at the University of Regensburg, argues that a delayed tax on social security benefits is "an element foreign to the classical income tax system". Dr. Rolf Kroker and Prof. Winfried Fuest of the Institute for the German Economy in Cologne argue that a higher taxation of social security benefits would be advisable even in the case that the German Constitutional Court unexpectedly rules that the differences between social security benefits and pensions for government officials do not violate the principle of equal treatment as laid out in the German Constitution.