German Tax Amnesty Revenues Top EUR900 Million

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

12 January 2005

The German finance ministry has confirmed that revenues collected from the government’s tax amnesty surpassed EUR900 million during 2004.

According to the ministry, revenues reached EUR901.7 million between January and December 2004 after a late rush of declarations in the final weeks of the year, pushing the figure beyond the government’s revised estimate of EUR800 million.

However despite this late rush, revenues remained substantially lower than the optimistic EUR5 billion overall target set by Finance Minister Hans Eichel at the commencement of the amnesty.

“It is always difficult to estimate the income from such a tax amnesty as no one knows how many people will take up the offer,” Finance Ministry spokesman Oliver Heyder-Rentsch told Bloomberg.

The government now estimates that the amnesty, which ends on March 31, 2005, will yield EUR1.5 billion in tax revenues.

With higher economic growth boosting Germany’s overall tax revenues, Heyder-Rentsch added that the authorities have no plans to extend the amnesty scheme beyond this date.

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