Who benefits from the reform of pension taxation in Germany?

The present paper quantifies the revenue, distributional and efficiency effects of the recent reform of pension taxation in Germany. The starting point is the new legislation, which has introduced a switch to the deferred taxation of retirement benefits starting in 2005. We compare this reform with an alternative transition proposed by the Federation of German Pension Insurance Institutes (VDR), where double taxation is avoided at the cost of higher revenue losses. Our simulations indicate significant growth and efficiency gains from the new tax legislation. Winners from the reform are mainly younger workers, while older workers, civil servants and the self-employed will lose. The VDR proposal would have resulted in higher efficiency gains, but also in stronger distributional consequences.