Inheritance tax – Söders questionable justice – Süddeutsche.de

Inheritance tax – Söders questionable justice – Süddeutsche.de

The inheritance tax must be regulated, ask the Constitutional Court judges. Finance Söder has a plan, but acting absurd. In the end, more companies than previously heirs could not pay a cent tax.

Comment by Nicholas Piper

In Germany, the heir is a tricky thing. The public generally considered heirs with suspicion, and as for the taxes, it is extremely unfair to: Who his parents leave money, stocks and houses which pays up to 30 percent inheritance tax; is it in which wealth has a family, the legacy remains undisturbed. The Federal Constitutional Court declared this practice in December rightly unconstitutional and the legislature applied a reform.

Now, Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder presented as a reform idea. Their amazing result is that there is actually nothing change. Söder uses the exceptions that has approved the constitutional court, generous. He founded more than is currently the case, he expanded even more, and in the end perhaps more than ever companies remain heirs tax-free. How can that be?

It is important to remember what the inheritance tax actually is there. Its purpose is not to “steer away” any wealth, so how to do this at regular tables and talk shows like they say. Although the tax to redistribute also task but it is mainly to secure the principle of taxation according to performance. Who inherits a few million euros, which is more powerful than the one who does not. That is why his tax burden must be higher.

But this taxation has unintended side effects. You can be so high that heirs have to sell their company to use only the claims of the tax office. This can cost jobs, but at least will be damaged in this way in the Germany, the popular model of the family-run operation over several generations. When in doubt, it attracts a potential testator (such as the dairy entrepreneur Theo Müller) prior to spare his future heir by the perfectly legal move to Switzerland.

For this reason, the Constitutional Court also says, “that the protection of family and job basically is a legitimate objective reason, partially or completely to free businesses from the tax. ” But what makes Söder it? He plans that “the preservation of the medium-sized and family-dominated corporate structures” should be a legislative purpose – and not just the preservation of jobs. Heirs of large companies are spared if the company has a clear “family characteristics”. The privileging of Companies heirs will therefore increase. Whether the Constitutional Court has wanted that?

It is strange with the relationship of German policy to wealth. On the one hand cheer to all the economists Thomas Piketty, who complained that the inherited wealth increases further. On the other hand, you are ready to undermine the tax so in passing on the performance further. Mind: The goal is not to force heir of the tax office to sell its well-managed company, is completely legitimate. But this does not mean that one inheritance tax continues to undermine such a piece of cheese. It is a case lie in the fiscal and economic policy objectives in conflict. Probably there is no clear solution, and the policy has to muddle through. The muddling has already allowed in a judgment so the Constitutional Court. The question, however, whether one has to go as far as Söder.