From BZ/dpa
Saving taxes made easy: not far from Berlin, some companies pay significantly less trade tax – and are therefore relocating their headquarters. The Senate wants to take action against this.
Berlin wants to align taxes in Berlin and Brandenburg against tax evasion by companies.
“We are finding that shifting profits to trade tax oases has become a popular means of tax optimization,” Finance Senator Daniel Wesener (Greens) told the German Press Agency. Berlin is in intensive talks with other states and municipalities about effective measures. “One objective is the harmonization of trade tax rates in the metropolitan region of Berlin-Brandenburg.”
Zossen is the tax haven
Nationwide, the trade tax rates have increased in recent years. However, they are lowest in Brandenburg, as a comparison by the auditing company EY shows. At the end of 2020, for example, Zossen with Langenwolschendorf in Thuringia was Germany’s municipality with the lowest tax rate of 200. It is now 270 in Zossen. But that is still significantly less than 15 kilometers away in Berlin (410) or Potsdam (455).
Trade tax is one of the most important sources of income for municipalities; you set the assessment rates yourself. Brandenburg’s municipalities have rather low tax revenues, said the Association of Towns and Municipalities. The low assessment rates can be attributed to this structural weakness. “We don’t see this as tax evasion,” says Wesener.
A shopping street in the town of Zossen in the district of Teltow-Fläming Photo: dpa
That would be the case with pure letterbox companies. If a company relocates its headquarters to one of the tax havens, entrepreneurial activity must actually take place there, explained Senator Wesener. “Everything else is a violation of applicable tax law and must be punished accordingly.”
Hundreds of companies are listed in Zossen, with a population of over 20,000. Green MP Katrin Schmidberger recently drew attention to this. “In Zossen, around half of the mailboxes belong to large real estate companies that are mainly active in Berlin,” she tweeted. As an example, she cited the Ziegert Group, of which 148 companies have their headquarters in Zossen, according to the company. Schmidberger demanded: “Anyone who has their business activities in Berlin or sells real estate in Berlin should also pay taxes in Berlin.”
Many Berlin companies have a mailbox on a garden fence in Zossen Photo: dpa
Ziegert points out that in Zossen there is a business premises with several employees. A spokeswoman explained that it offers an investment-friendly environment for the establishment and settlement of companies. “This also includes the trade tax rate, which is set by the municipality of Zossen.”
The tax rate is also the first argument with which the city’s website advertises settlements. However, Mayor Wiebke Sahin-Schwarzweller had emphasized in the past: “We are not a tax haven.” The large taxpayers of the community are all present in Zossen, albeit with a few employees.
Where it’s still cheap
A low trade tax attracts in a number of Brandenburg municipalities. Even the Schönefeld airport community is still relatively cheap for companies. Real estate companies and asset managers are based in the municipality of Höhenland, around 25 kilometers east of Berlin. A building contractor from North Rhine-Westphalia has registered four dozen companies there.
Zossen office landlords advertise online with example calculations of how much can be saved for companies – if they only relocate their headquarters to the small town. “If you want, we’ll take your mail for you and sort it,” advertises a co-working space provider. “If you wish, we can also forward it to you.”
Brandenburg
Office service providers make it difficult for tax authorities to tell whether they are dealing with shell companies or legal tax avoidance. A year ago, the Brandenburg Ministry of Finance announced a critical review of Zossen following a report by the NDR magazine “Panorama”. No information has yet been provided on the results on request.
In the meantime, the CDU and the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia have decided to drain “trade tax havens” as part of their joint government work. Municipalities with assessment rates that are too low should therefore receive less money from the state, and the state’s tax officials should also help the municipalities to find out where companies have their actual business premises.