In the fight against the housing shortage, many federal states are relying on an additional levy for undeveloped land. This is also repeatedly demanded in Bavaria. But one governing party draws a red line.
Munich (dpa / lby) - The introduction of the so-called property tax C, which the CSU has repeatedly called for, will not exist in the future with the free voters as part of the state government. "It is not a policy for the Free State of Bavaria to force property owners to sell their property through cutthroat property taxes. The free voters will continue to not support these false tendencies in Bavaria," said party leader Hubert Aiwanger on Wednesday at the request of the German Press Agency in Munich . He thus gave a clear rejection of the demand from the President of the Municipal Assembly, Uwe Brandl (CSU).
Brandl, who will also take over the office of President of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities at the turn of the year, had previously called for the reintroduction of property tax C: "Then every property owner would consider whether it would not be better to sell the property instead of year after year to pay a tax on the undeveloped land," he told the "Münchner Merkur". According to Brandl, tens of thousands of buildings could be erected in Bavaria "within a very short time".
"Anti-property policies lead to less living space," said Aiwanger. The property tax C is the wrong approach. It's surprising when Brandl comes around the corner again with the historical non-starter building land tax/property tax C. "It already existed in the 1960s and was quickly abolished again because it did not lead to more housing construction as hoped, but only to more speculation, higher land prices and the buying up of building land from the property of financially weak people by wealthy speculators."
In addition, a property tax C would bring massive unrest and disputes in municipalities and local councils, said Aiwanger. Because there it must be decided whether and to what extent and in which districts higher taxes should be introduced for undeveloped land.
In Aiwanger's opinion, in order to boost housing construction, inheritance tax must be abolished so that investments in living space would become more attractive again and the inherited apartment building would not have to be sold due to the high taxes. In addition, saving for home ownership must become significantly more attractive from a tax point of view. In general, the creation of living space must become more attractive again, "instead of increasingly burdening the landlord and taking the path to a state planned economy hostile to property with fantasies of expropriation," he said.
