Do financially strong municipalities benefit twice from state compensation payments anyway?
The SPD district chairman Florian Schardt fears.
He has a special eye on Grünwald.
District
- The municipalities were able to look forward to a refund of the corona-related trade tax losses in the past year.
Also in the district of Munich.
But there is a critical voice: the SPD district chairman Florian Schardt.
At first glance, he thinks the reimbursement mechanism makes sense.
However, he has noticed problematic aspects and considers it inappropriate for financially strong communities to benefit greatly.
Inexpensive commercial mix
In order to secure liquidity, companies were allowed to reduce their trade tax prepayments last year.
However, there could be cases in which communities benefit twice, Schardt fears.
He gives an example: A company is reducing its sales forecast for 2020 and thus the amount of the trade tax advance payment due to impending failures.
Due to the economic aid, the failures were kept within limits, so that the actual trade tax to be paid is higher than the advance payment.
After this consideration, the home community collects twice: in 2020 via the compensation pot, again later when the annual financial statements are fixed.
The district council sees communities such as Grünwald or Pullach as winners.
Your commercial mix is based on asset management, real estate, financial services.
Mostly industries that would have finished 2020 better than expected.
Do you have to profit if you have hundreds of millions of euros on the high edge?
Florian Schardt's greatest point of criticism relates to the fact that the general financial situation is neglected: "Does the general public have to be used for a municipality that has almost 187 million trade tax revenues in 2019 and several hundred million euros on top?" What is meant is Grünwald.
The community has attracted letterbox companies for years with the lowest trade tax rate in the district.
Grünwald receives more than 18 million euros in trade tax refunds from the Free State.
The SPD district chairman proposes to put in a cap and to exclude municipalities with an allocation power of more than 5000 euros or a reserve per capita of more than 10,000 euros.
Grünwald's mayor does not see any imbalance
Grünwald's mayor Jan Neusiedl (CSU) cannot see any imbalance.
Trade tax losses would be partially reimbursed by the federal government, the Free State of Bavaria added a little more.
Grünwald acted as required and submitted the necessary information.
There was even something left of the Free State's budget from which the poorer municipalities would have benefited.
Grünwald pays over 100 million euros to the district
Quite apart from that, the trade tax revenues are valuable for the district of Munich.
"If Grünwald fails and with it about 25 percent of the district budget, then it looks cone-duster." The district finances itself largely through the district levy.
"We pay a total of over 100 million euros a year," says Mayor Neusiedl.
One could discuss injustice among the municipalities.
But in this case, in which failures are paid, you are on the wrong playing field.
Because this is about predictability.
And something else.
Neusiedl recalls that a number of companies were only kept in Grünwald in Germany because of the low rate of assessment.
Because there is international competition here with hardly any comparable tax framework.
Ottobrunn is happy about the compensation payment
But how are other churches doing?
Ottobrunn received a trade tax equalization payment of 3.4 million euros in 2020.
In view of the fact that the Ottobrunn municipality was able to post trade tax income of around 20 million euros at the beginning of 2020, which then shrank to around 13.5 million euros as a result of the pandemic, the federal and state payments only offset part of the lost revenue.
Nevertheless, it is good news for Mayor Thomas Loderer (CSU) that Ottobrunn received any compensation at all.
Due to the ongoing lockdown, tax revenues are also currently very low for the current year 2021.
"If it stays that way, the one-off payment from 2020 could in retrospect turn out to be the proverbial drop in the bucket", explains the Mayor of Ottobrunn.
Oberhaching received 782,000 euros
After deducting the proportionate trade tax apportionment, the municipality of Oberhaching received a compensation amount of around 782,000 euros in 2020.
The payment softened the decrease in trade tax of around 1.95 million euros compared to the budget estimate of 22 million euros.
In the new budget year 2021, as in all other municipalities, no compensation payments are planned because there is no legal basis for this, as treasurer Paul Fröhlich announced.
Sauerlach does not show any losses
Sauerlach came through the past year seemingly unscathed: The community was able to collect all of the expected trade tax income last year despite the corona pandemic.
There were no failures and no compensation payments by the Free State, as the finance department reports.
This circumstance reveals that the municipality of Sauerlach booked rather modest trade tax income compared to other district municipalities.
But these have been stable for years, and even increasing.
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