New Taxes Increase Burden of Reich Jews; Community Obligations Add to Load

Recent tax law changes and the growing demands of Jewish welfare organizations have saddled the average $25-a-week Jewish wage earner with obligations — both moral and legal — ranging upwards from 25 per cent of his income. In the higher income brackets the claims made upon the Jews, by the State and by his fellow Jews, are, of course, a great deal more.

Typical of thousands of Jewish family heads is a job holder, supporting a wife and two children, who earns 250 marks ($100) a month. It must be emphasized at once that his 250-mark salary is merely a bookkeeping. Item. Actually he does not see more than about 203.85 marks of this sum on his monthly pay day. The rest of the money has been paid over by the employer to various tax agencies.

Income tax, health, unemployment and old age insurance and municipal taxes have cost the worker 41.15 marks. In addition he has paid the Jewish community tax (in Berlin 25 per cent of his income tax) of 3.55 marks and his Jewish Winter Help tax (also predicated upon his income tax) of 1.45 marks. The winter Help tax is paid six months during the year.

It should be pointed out that many communities levy a much higher tax than the 25 per cent imposed in Berlin. In some instances the rate is nearly 50 per cent. Christian church communities also levy a tax on their community members, but the rate here is usually less than 10 per cent, inasmuch as the Christian churches need to indulge in far fewer welfare activities than do the Jewish communities.

Thus the Jewish job-holder has already spent 18 per cent of his income before he receives a penny. In the ensuing month collectors for the Jewish Winter Help organizations will appear in his home at least thrice. The first time they will ask for cash, the second time for a pound of food and the third for the equivalent of a full meal which the family is supposed to have shortened into a single course this one time a month. At a conservative estimate, the three collections represent an additional burden of 1.50 marks a month.

It is exceedingly likely that at least one member of the family will belong to the community Kulturbund. In Berlin membership costs 2.65 marks monthly and entitles the holder to two performances. Many people who do not regularly attend Kulturbund musicals, operatic or theatrical performances, pay for membership anyway as a gesture of help towards the performers.

In addition there are the recurrent demands made by such Jewish organizations as the Centralverein, Hilfsverein, the Zionist organizations, the sport club, the “Hilfe und Aufbau” and others. For the most part the collection campaigns of these multitudinous organizations are correlated by a central agency so that only one campaign is being advertised in any one district of the country at the same time. It is estimated that the $25-a week jobholder will be distributing at least 4.50 marks a month among them.

Of his 250-mark-salary a month, the family supporter has now paid 46.15 marks in legal obligations and an additional 8.65 marks in voluntary contributions, a total of 22 per cent. Whatever additional pfennigs he may drop into the small blue collection boxes of the winter help organizations, which appear wherever Jews foregather, at Kulturbund performances, organization meetings and offices, or sponsored social meetings, constitute an additional drain.

This statistical picture definitely does not hold true at least as far as proportions are concerned — in the higher income brackets. Taxes here, as in the United States, are levied on the graduating principle. The 500-mark earner sees only about 400 marks at the end of the month, if he is unmarried. The recent ruling forbidding exemptions on income tax returns for Jewish children is partly responsible for the tremendous tax burden that must be born by the Jewish father.