Steuerzerlegung, Wirtschafts- und Steuerkraft

The local breakdown of the German Länder shares of tax revenues is hardly considered as a political or legal problem. Its purpose is to correct the results of the technical procedures of tax collection in order to distribute the revenues among the Länder according to their economic strength. This objective is hardly achieved. On the contrary, the shortcomings of the breakdown considerably intensify the problems of fiscal equalisation among the Länder. The question has to be raised whether or not the breakdown of revenues according to their “true” local origin is still appropriate within a highly integrated economy.