Zusammenfassung Die Gewerbesteuer zählt seit Jahrzehnten zu den umstrittensten Steuerarten des deutschen Steuerrechts. Für die Kommunen ist sie die wichtigste eigene Einnahmequelle, für Unternehmen hingegen ein zentraler Standortfaktor - und für den Gesetzgeber ein politisches Minenfeld. Trotz wiederkehrender Reformdebatten blieb die Gewerbesteuer in ihrem Kern bislang unangetastet. Die ifst‑Schrift 556 „Reform der Gewerbesteuer - eine ökonomische Perspektive“ greift dieses Dauerthema erneut auf, allerdings vor dem Hintergrund einer zunehmend zugespitzten finanziellen Lage der Kommunen und wachsender internationaler Wettbewerbsnachteile des deutschen Unternehmenssteuerstandorts. Die Autoren Dr. Martin Beznoska, Dr. Tobias Hentze und Dr. Björn Kauder nehmen die Gewerbesteuer nicht primär aus juristischer, sondern aus finanzwissenschaftlicher und ökonomischer Perspektive in den Blick.

Whether couples pool their resources and behave like a unit or spend their income individually is crucial for social and tax policy. In this paper, I provide a test of the income pooling hypothesis using administrative cross-sectional survey data on expenditures and individual incomes of couple households in Germany. The test is performed within the quadratic almost ideal demand system framework, which allows for an endogenous expenditure budget and endogenous individual income contribution shares in an instrumental variables approach. Although perfect income pooling is broadly rejected, there are significant differences regarding the marital status, the presence of at least one child in the household and whether the household is located in a former West or East German federal state. Married and unmarried couples with children are closer to the acceptance of the hypothesis than couples without children. The approach allows to calculate justifiable differentials of the marginal tax rates within the household if income pooling is rejected.

Measuring the effective tax progressivity of personal income tax over the whole income distribution, and consistently defined over time, is an important tool with which to evaluate tax reforms. While survey data provides the representative income distribution, it measures the tax liabilities imprecisely and lacks representativity at the top. Administrative tax data overcomes these disadvantages, but does not reflect the overall income distribution, as it excludes non-taxable incomes and those who do not pay the tax. In this paper, I provide a matching, easy-to-implement strategy that combines these two types of data to exploit their advantages. This approach can be applied to different years of repeated cross-sections, which results in a representative and time-consistent database for the distributional analysis of income and taxes. As a result, the effective tax rate of the top one percent of the income distribution is found to be 30.1 percent in 2019, similar to 30.3 percent in 1998 despite cuts in the marginal tax rate for the top earners during the time span.

Die deutsche Konjunktur ist auf der Angebots- und Nachfrageseite gespalten. Konsum und Teile der Dienstleistungsokonomie durchleben erneut kraftige Ein-bruche. Exporte und Teile der Industrie werden von der anziehenden Weltwirtschaft begunstigt. Die Weltwirtschaft wird 2021 um 5 Prozent zulegen, sie ist aber ebenfalls gespalten: China und die USA stutzen die Weltkonjunktur, der Euroraum schwachelt aufgrund der dritten Infektionswelle. Der Ruckgang des realen BIP in Deutschland im ersten Quartal 2021 und die im zweiten Quartal wieder ansteigenden Infekti-onszahlen dampfen die Erwartungen fur das Gesamtjahr. Das IW rechnet fur 2021 nur noch mit einem Wachstum von 3 Prozent. Erst Anfang 2022 wird das Vorkrisen-niveau wieder erreicht. Unter der Annahme einer erfolgreichen Zuruckdrangung der Pandemie und keiner Verschlechterung der Wettbewerbsfahigkeit und Stand-ortqualitat durfte die deutsche Wirtschaft im Jahr 2022 um gut 4 Prozent zulegen. Der Private Konsum wird 2021 aufgrund der Geschaftseinschrankungen stagnieren, nachdem er 2020 um 6 Prozent einbrach. Die Inflationsrate zieht aufgrund von Steuereffekten an, sie bleibt aber unter 2 Prozent. Die Ausrustungsinvestitionen kommen nur zogerlich in Fahrt und es werden erst im Jahr 2022 die starken Ein-bruche von 2020 aufgeholt. Die Bauinvestitionen wachsen langsam, aber konstant. Im Gefolge der konjunkturellen Erholung wird die Anzahl der Erwerbstatigen wie-der zunehmen, das Vorkrisenniveau aus dem Jahr 2019 wird allerdings im Progno-sezeitraum noch nicht wieder erreicht. Der steigende Anteil der Langzeitarbeitslo-sen erschwert die schnelle Ruckfuhrung der Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland. Das staatliche Haushaltsdefizit wird 2021 in Deutschland auf 4 ¾ Prozent des BIP weiter ansteigen und 2022 rund 3 Prozent des BIP betragen.

Unlike public sector consumption, public investment is often regarded as contributing to growth. Yet while spending on intangible goods such as education does not count as investment, even though it is potentially growth-enhancing, expenditure with little to no effect on growth often does. This raises the question as to whether the concept of investment should not be expanded to include government spending that has an impact on the future but is currently classed as consumption. The traditional distinction between government consumption and public investment is not always clear. Expenditure is often defined as investment if it results in an asset which can be used repeatedly in the production process and potentially generates income in later periods, and which is at the free disposition of its owner or funding body. Educational expenditure is thus mostly defined as consumption because while it serves to generate future income, the productivity it builds up is person-related and thus not unrestrictedly available to those funding it. [...]

Die Corona-Krise hat sich insbesondere auch auf den Arbeitsmarkt ausgewirkt. Der Lockdown hat zu Arbeitsplatzverlusten geführt - allen voran in der Hotel-, Gastronomie- und Tourismusbranche. Ebenso sind bestimmte Branchen von Kurzarbeit betroffen. Das hat Folgen für die Einkommenssituation der betroffenen Haushalte. Es lässt sich zeigen, dass Haushalte mit bereits vor der Krise niedrigeren Einkommen in der Krise stärkere Einkommensverluste erleiden. Allerdings entfaltet das Konjunktur- und Krisenbewältigungspaket der Bundesregierung mit Hilfsmaßnahmen durchaus seine Wirkung, um Arbeitsplätze zu stabilisieren und soziale Härten abzufedern. Davon profi tieren Männer jedoch vergleichsweise stärker als Frauen. The Coronavirus crisis has had a distinct impact on the labour market. The lockdown has led to job losses, especially in the catering and tourism industries. Certain sectors have also been affected by shortterm work. This also has consequences for the income situation of affected households. It is evident that households with incomes that were already lower before the crisis are more affected by income losses during the crisis. However, the federal government’s economic stimulus and crisis management aid package is certainly effective at stabilising jobs and averting social hardship. However, men benefit from this comparatively more than women.

The inheritance tax is often seen as an effective tool to reduce wealth inequality,to raise public revenues if needed, and to increase incentives to work by lowering the tax burden on labour, which is especially high in Germany, according to the OECD. However, expectations that higher taxation of wealth, not least in the form of inheritances and gifts, would lead to a decline in wealth inequality are often exaggerated. A higher inheritance tax would not directly reduce inequality.From an economic point of view, a valid argument in favor of a higher taxation of inheritances and gifts would be the possibility of using additional tax revenues to reduce the burden on labor.A shift of tax revenues from income tax to inheritance tax could be used to increase incentives to work by lowering marginal tax rates for the working population. As a reform model for the inheritance tax, many economists therefore recommend a broad tax base with relatively low tax rates, i.e. a departure from the current model with partly high tax rates but extensive allowances and exemption rules.

The coronavirus crisis has had a distinct impact on the labour market. The lockdown has led to job losses, especially in the catering and tourism industries. Certain sectors have also been affected by short­term work. This also has consequences for the income situation of affected households. It is evident that households with incomes that were already lower before the crisis are more affected by income losses during the crisis. However, the federal government’s economic stimulus and crisis management aid package is certainly effective at stabilising jobs and averting social hardship. However, men benefit from this comparatively more than women.

During the pandemic, the German government's debt level is expected to grow to EUR 2.7 trillion in 2022. The debt ratio will peak at 75 percent by the end of this year. Of the 650 billion additional national debt during the Corona crisis, around 480 billion euros can be classified as Corona-related. With the return to the debt brake, the debt ratio will continuously fall again, even if the decline will be more slowly than after the financial crisis. In order to secure sufficient room for manoeuvre for the public sector, there are three options for action to be considered: 1. A time extension of the repayment of the corona-related debts would relieve the public budgets in the coming years. 2. A moderate opening of the debt brake in accordance with the European fiscal pact is advisable to enlarge fiscal space, which is needed in the future, for example for defence and social spending. 3. A limited, legally independent fund is recommended to invest an additional 45 billion euros annually in infrastructure, climate protection and education for ten years. [...]

The German economy is divided on both the supply and demand sides. Consumption and parts of the service economy are again experiencing sharp falls while exports and some industrial sectors are be-nefiting from a worldwide economic recovery. Global business will grow by 5 per cent in 2021 but not uniformly: China and the USA are currently the pillars of the global economy, while the euro area is weakening due to a third wave of infections. The first quarter decline in Germany's real GDP and the second quarter's rising infection figures are again dampening expectations for 2021 as a whole. The German Economic Institute (IW) expects growth of only 3 per cent this year and a return to pre-crisis activity levels only early in 2022. Assuming that the pandemic is successfully suppressed and both competitiveness and Germany's attractiveness as a location for investment hold up, the country's economy should grow by a good 4 per cent in 2022. Having slumped by 6 per cent in 2020, private consumption will stagnate in 2021 as a result of the constraints on business. Fiscal changes will acce-lerate inflation, which will nonetheless remain below 2 per cent. Investment in machinery and equipment is picking up only slowly and is unlikely to make good the sharp declines of 2020 until next year, but investment in construction is making modest but steady progress. As the economy recovers, the num-ber of those in gainful employment will enjoy an upturn but is not expected to regain the pre-crisis level of 2019 within the timescale of this forecast. A rising share of long-term unemployed will make it difficult to cut unemployment in Germany rapidly. Germany's budget deficit will continue to rise, rea-ching some 4 ¾ per cent of GDP in 2021, with around 3 per cent expected in 2022.

ZusammenfassungHohe Schuldenstände und im langfristigen Vergleich niedrige Investitionen sind symptomatisch für die Schieflage der Kommunalfinanzen in vielen Regionen Deutschlands. Die Autoren untersuchen die Ursachen der langfristigen Fehlentwicklungen in den kommunalen Budgets. Eine ökonometrische Analyse der nordrhein-westfälischen Kommunen, die exemplarisch für die kommunalen Finanzprobleme stehen, zeigt Determinanten von Investitionsausgaben und Verschuldung. Investitionen werden demnach von hohen Steuereinnahmen begünstigt und durch hohe Sozial- und Personalausgaben beeinträchtigt. Eine zentrale Stellschraube zur Entspannung kommunaler Haushalte sind die Sozialausgaben, über deren (Neu-) Aufteilung zwischen den föderalen Ebenen auch die regionalen Disparitäten abgebaut werden könnten. Um die Kommunen zukunftsfest zu machen, könnte man einen kommunalen Investitionsfonds auflegen, dessen Mittel ähnlich verteilt werden wie beim Zukunftsinvestitionsgesetz im Rahmen des Konjunkturpakets II nach der Finanzkrise 2008/2009.