It was mocked as a spruce Panama, and criticized as at least a disreputable tax haven: The very special commercial area, which existed near the forester’s lodge St. Hubertus until the end of last year. Several companies have been located in the so-called Seegrasstadel since 2004 – at least their mailboxes. The background to this is that a particularly low trade tax rate applied in the unincorporated area of Ebersberger Forst. Now the petition committee of the state parliament has dealt with the tax savings barn and accepted a petition from the ÖDP, which could perhaps make similar institutions more difficult in the future.
Specifically, the state parliament should “oblige the Bavarian state government to review the legality of this tax avoidance system for companies at the expense of the entire public budget”. Furthermore, the state parliament is asked to “move the Bavarian state government to become active in the Bundesrat in order to prevent such procedures in the long term”.
The ÖDP had already spoken out against the industrial park in the forest in 2017
The petition was brought in by the former ÖDP district councilor Johanna Weigl-Mühlfeld, who had unsuccessfully applied for an end to the Seegrasstadel business model in the district council five years ago. In a recent statement, Weigl-Mühlfeld points to the defensive arguments of the CSU and FDP. In addition, the financial manager of the district, Brigitte Keller, assured that the Seegrasstadel model was legal. This is exactly what the ÖDP politician doubts, the background being that the district of Ebersberg had to transfer 23.5 million euros in trade tax revenue to the city of Munich almost two years ago. The tax authorities ordered this at the time because they were of the opinion that the companies allegedly based in the Seegrasstadel actually had their headquarters in Munich, so they would have been taxable there.
The ÖDP politician Johanna Weigl-Mühlfeld has submitted a petition to the state parliament to abolish trade tax dumping.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Weigl-Mühlfeld also mentions criminal tax proceedings that are pending in the matter. The CSU MP Ernst Weidenbusch reported on this in the committee, but not whether this was directed against the companies or the district. Weigl-Mühlfeld quotes Weidenbusch as saying that he was surprised that Albert Füracker (CSU), then Minister of State for Finance, said in 2017 that everything would be fine. “We absolutely need a binding, legal framework that gives municipalities legal certainty,” says Weigl-Mühlfeld: “It cannot be that a ministry says in 2017 that it is legal and today five years later – without changing the legal basis – criminal tax proceedings in the same matter.”
The SZ had already reported on a procedure in the Seegrasstadel case in the summer: At that time, the Munich II public prosecutor’s office had initiated investigations against several financial managers from the Hypo-Vereinsbank (HVB) group. The accusation is the same that led to the withdrawal of the trade tax millions from the Ebersberg district budget: the companies would not have made their profits in the forest but in Munich, where the tax rate would have been more than twice as high.
For the district of Ebersberg, however, the matter is extremely unfortunate even without criminal tax proceedings: As the finance committee of the district learned this week, the loan taken out for the repayment must be repaid in 2024 and 2025 – given the current economic situation, however, this is probably not going to be as planned the profit surplus possible. Which means the spruce panama could become the spruce moped for some county investments.