IESET.
Policies·at_familienbonus_plus_2019

Familienbonus Plus — EUR 1,500 per child income-tax credit 2019

AUT·2019 present·enacted 2018-07-04·OeVP-FPOecandidate
movestax progressivitytransfer expansion

What the policy did

Introduced the Familienbonus Plus income-tax credit of EUR 1,500 per child under 18 (EUR 500 per child in education 18-24), offsetting income-tax liability, effective 1 January 2019. Refundable portion (Kindermehrbetrag) of EUR 250 for low-income households. Replaced the previous Kinderfreibetrag and childcare-expenses deduction with a simpler and larger credit. Framed as the signature OeVP family-policy enactment of the Kurz I period and retained across successor governments (expanded in 2022 Familienpaket).

Policy-content fingerprint — what this policy moved, on which axes

Per invariant 3, reforms are scored by what they did on each channel-separated axis, not by the party that enacted them. This fingerprint is how the policy-match engine finds historical analogues.

intended
tax progressivity
fiscal.tax_progressivity
Progressivity of the personal income tax schedule, including top marginal rates, bracket spread, and targeted credits (EITC-equivalents).
decreased · weak
less progressive (flatter rates, compression, smaller credits)
Non-refundable tax credit disproportionately benefits households with positive tax liabilities, mildly flattening effective rates for middle-income families.
transfer expansion
fiscal.transfer_expansion
Size of cash and near-cash transfer programmes (unemployment benefits, means-tested assistance, universal child benefits). Architecturally distinct from forced-saving schemes — see condition welfare_architecture.
increased · weak
larger transfer footprint
Refundable Kindermehrbetrag component functions as a transfer to households below the tax-liability threshold.

Enacted by

Empirical evidence — linked hypotheses

Explicit links are curated by the author. Inferred links are hypotheses in the library that test the same axes this policy moved — the framework's answer to "what does the data say about a policy like this?".

Large-scale universal or near-universal transfer programmes produce a three-order causal chain.
universal_transfer_programmes_labour_force_participation_declineinferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.tax_progressivity
partial — Prime-age LFP fell by ≥1.0pp in 2/5 cases (threshold for SUPPORTED: ≥3). First-order improved in 3/4 cases. Mixed: consistent with the spec's design-d…
partial
The American Rescue Plan Act (March 2021) expansion of the Child Tax Credit to USD 3000-3600 per child with full refundability and monthly disbursement (July-December 2021) produced a measurable and immediate decline in monthly child-poverty rate of at least 4 percentage points (Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia time-series), with the credit's December 2021 expiration producing a corresponding immediate reversal — providing high-frequency event-window evidence on near-instantaneous cash-transfer-to-poverty mechanics.
welfare_transfer_us_arpa_expanded_ctc_2021inferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.tax_progressivity
WEAKENED - SPM child poverty fell 4.5pp and rebounded 7.2pp; monthly CPSP and parental-LFP gates are not loaded
refuted
The 2021 expansion of the US Child Tax Credit under the American Rescue Plan (full refundability + monthly payments + raised maximum) reduced the official + Supplemental Poverty Measure child poverty rate by at least 3 percentage points within the six-month payment window (July- December 2021), with a sharp reversion after expiration in 2022Q1.
tax_inequality_biden_ctc_2021_child_povertyinferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.tax_progressivity
SUPPORTED - SPM child poverty fell 4.5pp in 2020-2021 and rebounded 7.2pp in 2021-2022; both clear the registered thresholds and p<0.10 MOE check
supported
The labour-supply dis-employment elasticity of negative-income-tax (NIT) and earned-income-tax-credit (EITC) -style cash-transfer programmes is materially smaller than the canonical mid-1970s NIT- experiment headline estimates suggested.
friedman_negative_income_tax_labour_supply_smaller_than_predictedinferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.tax_progressivity
PARTIAL — ATT=+20.8, p=nan, N=53, treated_countries=1 (above α=0.10)
partial
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available under-5 mortality than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_under5_mortality_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.transfer_expansion
PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=-1.127, p=0.811)
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available under-5 mortality.
heritage_tax_burden_under5_mortality_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivityfiscal.transfer_expansion
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=-0.3884, p=0.7236)
partial
Universal single-payer healthcare systems (NHS, Canadian Medicare) produce lower per-capita healthcare expenditure with equal or better life-expectancy outcomes than the US multi-payer system.
single_payer_cost_outcome_comparisoninferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansion
supported_subset — cost test PASSES (USA per-capita PPP $10957 vs GBR/CAN mean $5663, ratio 1.93x > 1.5); single-payer matched-or-beat USA on 4/5 tested outcome…
supported
Universal child-benefit / expanded child tax credit expansions (US ARP 2021, UK pre-2013 child benefit) reduced child poverty rates by measurable magnitudes in real time.
child_benefit_expansion_child_poverty_effectinferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.tax_progressivity
SUPPORTED - US SPM child poverty fell 4.5pp and rebounded 7.2pp; UK child poverty rose 2.1pp after the 2013 tightening
supported

Similar historical policies

Ranked by axis-fingerprint overlap with this policy. Direction match bolded — those are the closest historical analogues. Shape of the match is what drives policy-outcome comparison, not the country or party label.

References