German Public Finance and Tax Policy after Unification

德国在传统上和宪法上都是一个联邦国家，无论是在国家结构上还是在财政和税收制度上都是如此。这个特点在她九零年统一以后没有改变，因为德国这个社会主义单一制国家是被德国这个社会主义联邦制国家吞并的，而不是相反，我觉得这种统一有三个方面。首先考察了西德宪法对财政税收制度的规定。既然这些规定在统一后的德国的所有地区都适用，这就意味着统一的一般方面，但第二，德国统一也有一个特殊的方面，即旧东德国地区新生的五个州财政能力较弱。因此，我研究了统一条约所承认的例外的含义。在这些例外的情况下，还包括了以德国式联邦国家为特色的横向财政调节制度。第三，阐述了1990年以后的财税政策是如何因应形势的变化而发展的。但在我看来，地方财税体制的稳定问题也很重要，因为资源配置，如社会间接资本的提供，大多是由地方政府来完成的。因此，本文的研究主要涉及地方财税体制。在德国，营业税在历史上一直扮演着重要角色。与此同时，这项税收受到了强烈的批评，因为德国公司不是根据收入（收益）的大小，而是根据外部评估标准征收这项税收。

Traditionally and by constitutions, Germany has been a federal state in state fabric as well as in fiscal and tax system. This character didn't change after her unification in 1990, because East Germany, a socialist unitary state, was annexed to West Germany, a social federal state, and not the reverse.I thought this kind of unification has three aspects. Firstly I investigated how fiscal and tax system were prescribed under the West German constitution. Now that these prescriptions hold true in all area of unified Germany, this means general aspect of the unification.But, secondly, German unification has also a specific aspect, because new born five states in old East Germany area are weak in fiscal abilities. So I examined the meaning of exceptions which unification treaty has acknowledged. Under these exceptions the horizontal fiscal adjustment system is included, which is famous for being characteristics in German type of federal state.Thirdly I explained how the fiscal and tax policy after 1990 has developed corresponding to changing situations. But according to my view, the stabilization problems of local finance and tax system is important as well, because resource allocation, for example the provision of social overhead capital, is mostly accomplished by the hands of local governments. So my study refers much to local fiscal and tax system. In Germany the business tax has played main role historically. At the same time this tax has been under strong criticism, because German firms are imposed under this tax according not to the size of income (gain), but to external standard of assessment.