When Taxation Changes the Course of the Year – Fiscal Year Adjustments and the German Tax Reform 2000/2001

The paper examines 157 German listed corporations that had the option of changing their fiscal year to achieve a possible tax reduction in connection with the major tax reform of 2000/2001. The tax reduction from a change was larger, the larger the expected profits. However, with costs of changing the fiscal year, not all firms that expect a tax reduction from a change may do so. The paper presents empirical evidence that the propensity to change the fiscal year was significantly related to the amount of expected tax savings. This suggests that the corporate tax reduction – in combination with the special German transitory provisions – induced a deadweight loss: corporations incurred a non-tax cost to avoid a tax cost.tax reform, deadweight loss, fiscal year

Steuerreformen und Unternehmensentscheidungen

Dass Steuern ökonomische Entscheidungen beeinflussen, ist unbestritten. Für die Politik ist es daher elementar, etwas über die Auswirkungen des Steuerrechts auf das Verhalten der Steuerpflichtigen zu wissen. Die Analyse einer vergangenen Steuerreform als natürliches Experiment kann vor diesem Hintergrund wertvolle Hinweise für die künftige Politik liefern. Während hierzu bereits eine breite theoretische Literatur existiert, ist die empirische Evidenz gerade für deutsche Daten noch relativ rar. Die Arbeit untersucht daher die Auswirkungen der großen Steuerreform 2000 auf Unternehmensentscheidungen mit Hilfe moderner ökonometrischer Methoden. So können beispielsweise die Ursachen des Einbruchs der Körperschaftsteuereinnahmen 2001 erklärt und wirtschaftspolitische Empfehlungen daraus entwickelt werden

The climate and soil moisture network at TERENO Northeastern German Lowland Observatory - DEMMIN

The goal of the TERENO initiative is the long-term monitoring and documentation of proposed climate change, changes in land use, social-economic developments and anthropogenic influences on terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore long-term observations of multitemporal environmental parameters at different scale are the basis for gathering information on changes of the available water resources, material flows, or further ecological changes. The Durable Environmental Multidisciplinary Monitoring Information Network (DEMMIN®) located in the North-east of Germany was installed by German Aerospace Center in 1999 for Calibration and Validation of Remote Sensing data at agricultural areas. Due to its physiographic composition and typical agricultural management the area is a perfect test site for monitoring of relevant environmental parameters. Since 2009 the DEMMIN test field of 50 x 50 km is part of the Northeastern German Lowland Observatory (TERENONE), which is coordinated by Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. Because of the remote sensing focus of the DEMMIN test sites it is a perfect area to evaluate the potential of linking ground based in-situ data with remote sensing data analysis with view to the COPERNICUS initiative of the European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA)

Das steuerpolitische Dezemberfieber: Steuergesetzgebung in Deutschland von 1951 bis 2004

Public complaints about the growth, complexity and volatility of tax legislation abound. Against this background, the present article gives an account of the quantitative development of tax legislation in post-war Germany. We find that the legislative output did not increase over the decades. In general, the output is higher during the 12 months before a federal election than during the first 12 months after. Furthermore, the legislative output is not affected by a split majority in the upper and lower houses. Finally, we find that an increasing fraction of this legislation is passed in December. This growing "December fever" reduces the available time to adapt for taxpayers, tax-lawyers, and tax authorities and is a plausible explanation of the growing discontent with tax policy. Copyright 2007 die Autoren Journal compilation 2007, Verein für Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishing Ltd.