»The Tax Treatment of Disproportionate Contributions between an Obstacle to Restructurings and a Tax-Saving Scheme«: Over a long period of time, disproportionate contributions allowed for a transfer of large fortunes without triggering gift tax because of a lack of coordination between German gift tax law and fundamental principles of German income tax law and civil law. In 2011, however, a legislative intervention caused the pendulum to swing in the other direction. Since then, the amended law bears the risk of unsystematically overtaxing restructuring measures beyond the originally intended reason for such a tax burden. This thesis analyses the tax treatment of disproportionate contributions before and after the change of law. On this basis, a proposal for a legislative reform is introduced that aims at overcoming the imponderables between an obstacle to restructurings and a tax-saving scheme.