Philipp Schneider, happily married to Kerstin and father of Emil and Jim, is about to go bankrupt with his urban planning office. Powerless against the stalling tactics of his clients, he is heavily in debt. Philipp braces himself against the loss of the office with all his might - even his own house is now mortgaged. With his selfish nature he drives Kerstin into someone else's arms. When he has lost everything and has become an onlooker in his own life, Philipp reflects on what is really important to him: he begins to win back his family.

Relations

Sensible German tax collector Erol Ozak has to apprentice haughty young Jana von Unruh. Her thoughtless zeal when confronted with a bag of presumably ill-gotten cash entices a gunfight, which Erol survives, but the bag disappears after a car-crash during his flight. Alas the police and even his superiors mistrust his story, suggesting he may have stolen the cash. The gangsters came after Erol to pay up, offering as only alternative abusing his tax service skills for illegal extortion. Somehow his neighbors and public functionaries are involved.