In the future, less interest will be due on tax arrears than before.
The Federal Council gave the green light for lower interest rates on Friday.
Specifically, retroactive to January 1, 2019, only 1.8 instead of 6.0 percent per year must be paid.
However, the interest rate from which taxpayers benefit in the event of a refund from the tax office also falls to the same extent.
There are interest rates for income tax, corporation tax, property tax, sales tax and trade tax.
They become due if an additional tax payment or refund is delayed by more than 15 months.
In the first case, the Treasury benefits, in the second, the taxpayer.
Because of the years of low interest rates, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the unusually high tax interest rate of 6 percent annually to be unconstitutional last year.
An evaluation clause is now intended to ensure that the interest rate remains appropriate – i.e. it is raised again even if interest rates generally rise.
The federal government expects that the change will result in 2.46 billion euros less in revenue this year.