Elisabeth Kaiser, the federal government’s East‑German affairs spokesperson from the SPD, has highlighted a persistent gap in inheritance and gift distributions between eastern and western German states. According to Kaiser’s spokesperson, people in the east receive both inheritances and gifts less frequently than those in the west, and the amounts are significantly lower. The most recent data show an average inheritance of €92 000 in the west compared with €52 000 in the east.
The underlying cause, the spokesperson notes, is the stark difference in household net worth: in 2023, the average net wealth of an eastern household was €170 100, whereas western households averaged €364 900. “More and more East Germans feel that they are permanently disadvantaged by unjustly distributed starting conditions” the spokesperson said, adding that the reduced wealth of many East Germans has nothing to do with their lifetime achievements.
Kaiser herself told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland that she is committed to reforming the inheritance tax system to make it fairer and simpler. Currently, heirs with very large fortunes are spared numerous exemptions and special provisions. Her goal is a streamlined system with “no loopholes for extremely large wealth”.
She added that the savings from closing such loopholes could be redirected into the country-specifically, funding schools, kindergartens, and overall education improvement. Moreover, the revenues could help many East Germans acquire private homes, thereby improving wealth distribution. At the same time, she calls for finding mechanisms to solidarity‑ly balance the tax‑revenue gap between the west, which sees many large inheritances, and the east, which has far fewer taxable inheritances.