Reforming the German Local Business Tax – Lessons from an International Comparison and a Microsimulation Analysis

The local business tax as the main revenue source of local governments in Germany has been under extensive debate for decades. Proposals for reform range from a pure profit tax to an origin-based value-added tax. Local business taxation systems in OECD countries actually represent the whole spectrum between these two extremes. We use a newly developed microsimulation model for the business sector in Germany to analyze the first round fiscal and distributional effects of the general reform options identified. We also analyze the effects of the actual German business-tax reform 2008 with respect to local-business-tax revenues.