Weilheim takes almost 50 percent more in trade tax - but the money has long been planned

Created: 08/03/2022, 12:00 p.m

By: Magnus Reitinger

In 2021, the city of Weilheim received significantly more from trade tax than expected - a total of a good 13.1 million euros (symbol image).

© Daniel Reinhardt

The finances of the city of Weilheim developed significantly better than expected in 2021: almost 50 percent more came in from trade tax than expected.

This way the city can build up a little more reserves.

However, they have been planned for a long time.

Weilheim

– Finally some good news about the finances of the city of Weilheim, which has been chronically sluggish for years: The past year was “enjoyable”, said treasurer Christoph Scharf when he presented the 2021 annual accounts to the city council last week.

According to him, the "lifeline" was the trade tax revenue, which amounted to a good 13.1 million euros - and was therefore almost 50 percent higher than the city treasurer had estimated in the budget.

"How can you be so far off the mark?"

"How can you be so far off the mark?" asked Scharf self-critically at the most recent city council meeting.

And he immediately gave the answer himself: The first three quarters of the past year went “normally”, but in the last quarter, numerous additional payments from companies, among other things, washed an unexpectedly large amount of trade tax into the city coffers.

From October to December 2021, the city received almost seven million euros here - more than in the three previous quarters combined.

For example, 22 Weilheim companies “assessed changes over 50,000 euros,” explained the treasurer: “That’s a whopping sum, you can’t plan something like that.

Luckily it was positive – there have been other years.”

Weilheim's debt far above the national average

In 2021, the unexpected income made it possible for the city to make more than 6.5 million euros in “the second-highest allocation to the property budget since records began,” says Scharf.

Another 2.48 million flowed into the general reserve, which increased to 15.58 million euros.

However, Weilheim also has almost 17 million euros in debt – despite a scheduled repayment of one million euros.

With this level of debt, the city is "still 37 percent above the national average," according to Scharf.

The treasurer warned that this will remain the case for the time being, with a view to the upcoming investments: "We have to see that our budgets are approved in the next few years."

Positive effect of the commercial area Achalaich?

In any case, the higher income is not a signal that "additional" could be possible, stressed Klaus Gast (CSU) in the city council.

The municipal reserves are already planned for compulsory tasks such as the Hardtschul extension.

For the suddenly necessary renovation of the town hall, the city also has to sell a property that was held "for bad times".

Alfred Honisch (Greens) wanted to know whether Achalaich, Weilheim's youngest commercial area, was already generating noticeable "inflows" for the city.

"It only went online in 2021," Scharf replied, so it was still too early for numbers: "But the trend is positive."