Constitution and Tax.pptxVIP

Wolfgang Sch?n MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance Peking University, 12th May 2014 ;The Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. The Constitution ??Basic Law?? was introduced at that time and is still in force (no major change after reunification). The Constitutional Court was created in 1951. This Court has the sole power to invalidate legislation enacted by the the Federal Parliament and by sub-national parliaments. There is extensive jurisprudence by the Constitutional Court in tax matters for more than 60 years now. ;The Constitution influences tax legislation and tax administration in three major fields: Competence: Which entity (Federation, sub-national states or local municipalities) has the power to legislate on taxa-tion, to administrate its enforcement and to receive the revenue? Major Principles: What effect do major principles of the constitution have on taxation (democracy, rule of law, separation of powers)? Protection of the Taxpayer: To what extent is the tax legislator constrained by rights and liberties of the people?;General Aspects of Procedure: No taxpayer is obliged to pay taxes which infringe on provisi-ons in the Basic Law (both formal and material provisions) Any taxpayer may apply for review of his tax assessment to the local tax court. The local tax court and (upon appeal) the Federal Tax Court are entitled to refer the case to the Constitutional Court. The taxpayer can invoke directly the Constitutional Court if the Federal Tax Court dismisses his appeal against a judge-ment of the lower court. ;Case No.1: Constitutional assessment of the newly introduced tax on ??nuclear fuel?? used by nuclear power plants. Tax Court Hamburg (2013) refers the legality of the nuclear fuel tax both to the European Court of Justice (addressing the compatibility with European Energy Law and European State Aid Law) The German Constitutional Court (addressing the compatibility with the German Constitution). Other courts do not have the power to declare