Wood chips: tax rebel von Straußdorf wins in court

Created: 09/01/2022Updated: 09/01/2022 10:02 p.m

By: Michael Acker

For wood chips, here at a point of sale near Schwaberwegen, only seven percent sales tax and no longer 19 percent are due.

Martin Lechner fought it through.

© J.Dziemballa

Wood chips are no longer subject to 19 percent but only 7 percent sales tax.

Straußdorfer Martin Lechner fought for this for years.

Straußdorf – Martin Lechner (67) has been in local politics for the CSU for too long and is too well connected there to be accused of being particularly inclined towards revolutionism.

But in this matter, the long-standing district councilor became a rebel.

He won the years-long battle and still shakes his head afterwards when he tells his story.

Martin Lechner © Private

Martin Lechner founded the company "Ecolohe" in 2005, which was initially active in the biogas and later in the wood chip business.

The company supplied private individuals, companies and local authorities with the heating fuel and – as is usual with wood fuel – charged a sales tax of seven percent.

In 2012, a sales tax audit was carried out by the Rosenheim tax office - Ecolohe had meanwhile moved from Straußdorf (Ebersberg district) to Bad Aibling - with a big ending: the company was sentenced to an additional payment of 650,000 euros in a provisional decision.

"That would have been our death," says Lechner.

With expensive lawyers to the Federal Fiscal Court

The tax office argued that 19 percent sales tax is due on forest chips used for heating - in contrast to other wood fuels such as pellets or briquettes, for which just seven percent apply.

So much in advance: Lechner did not comply with the demands of the tax authorities, hired expensive lawyers and called the Munich tax court instead.

But how did the different tax classifications of fuels come about?

Lechner says that it was the fault of customs, which did not classify wood chips under a customs tariff number for firewood, but assigned the wood chips their own customs tariff number.

Due to this own number, the wood chips got into a different tax rate.

On the other hand, pellets and briquettes have been added to firewood, for which a sales tax rate of seven percent applies.

The Munich Finance Court ruled in favor of Lechner in the early summer of this year

The Munich Finance Court ruled in favor of Lechner in early summer of this year.

But that was not the end of the legal dispute, it went all the way to the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH).

And Lechner's point of view also made sense to the judges there that it couldn't be that wood fuels were classified in different tax classes.

You can find more current news from the district of Ebersberg at Merkur.de/Ebersberg.

"After almost ten years of fighting, using a lot of money for lawyers, nerves and paper, the tedious issue of sales tax on wood chips has come to a happy end," says Lechner happily.

A major competitive disadvantage for wood chips has finally been eliminated.

Thousands of private customers and municipalities have paid twelve percent too much VAT for many years.

And, as Lechner says about his woodchip colleagues: many have been asked by their tax authorities to make enormous additional sales tax payments.

At Lechner's company "Ecolohe" it was, as I said, 650,000 euros in 2012.

This money did not flow, "but a fortune" for the lawyers with whom we defended ourselves against injustice," said the Straussdorf rebel.

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