Icon: enlarge
Frankfurter Zeil during the lockdown in April: More than five billion euros less business tax income
Photo: Jan Huebner / Blatterspiel / imago images / Jan Huebner
The Corona recession has put the budgets of the municipalities in Germany in trouble.
Cities and municipalities had a funding deficit of 9.7 billion euros in the first half of the year, announced the Federal Statistical Office.
A year earlier, the minus was only 0.3 billion euros.
According to the official statisticians, the reason for the negative development was "strong revenue shortfalls in the municipalities as a result of the corona pandemic in the second quarter".
In the period from April to June, the German economy slumped by 9.7 percent, more than ever before.
As a result, tax revenue shrank in the first half of the year by 4.7 billion euros or 10.6 percent to 39.6 billion euros.
The trade tax alone, at 19.1 billion euros, even brought 5.2 billion euros less into the municipal coffers than in the same period of the previous year.
The federal economic stimulus package, which provides for a "communal solidarity pact" to compensate for business tax losses, will only take effect in the second half of 2020.
On the other hand, municipal expenditure grew significantly in the first half of the year.
They increased by 6.2 percent to 137.1 billion euros.
Capital expenditures rose particularly strongly by 16 percent, in absolute figures they amounted to 16.3 billion euros.
Personnel expenses increased by 4.7 percent to 35.3 billion euros.
Social benefits, on the other hand, remained largely stable at a volume of 30.3 billion euros.
Icon: The mirror
fdi / Reuters
