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By:  J. Elishewa Patterson-Baysal
WINHELLER Attorneys at Law & Tax Advisors
Frankfurt, Germany

What you need to Know about Parental Benefits in Germany

The parenting benefits program "ElterngeldPlus" will be available as of January 2015. Based on these new rules, fathers and mothers, who would like to work part time during the time they draw parenting benefits, will be able to bene-fit twice as long from government assistance. One parenting benefits month will then be drawn out to two benefits months.

This new version of income dependent parenting benefits is meant to give mothers and fathers the option to work part time and still be able to receive government assistance. With the "ElterngeldPlus" program, parents only receive half as much money as those who receive regular parenting benefits, but in return the period of time in which the family can receive support is 24 months and thus twice as long as in the past.

If both the mother and father each work between 25 and 30 hours a week, a "partnership bonus" becomes available. This means support is paid for another four months. This is meant to give families the opportunity to better balance their professional and private lives.

PLEASE NOTE: If all requirements are met, in an ideal scenario a family can combine all of the new parenting benefits variants and continue drawing parenting benefits up to the child's 28th month of age. As a result, parents working part time receive more parenting benefits in total than prior to January 1, 2015.

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