In the Bundesrat, Bavaria advocates an increase in the personal allowances for inheritance tax in order to avoid additional burdens.

The background is an increase in assets for real estate, which is provided for with the Annual Tax Act 2022.

The calculation method is updated to meet the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court.

The interest group Haus & Grund had warned that this could increase the value of houses in inheritance tax by 20 to 30 percent.

Sometimes even larger increases are expected.

Manfred Schäfers

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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The CSU financial politician Sebastian Brehm gives the example of a detached family house with 220 square meters on 770 square meters of land.

This is currently valued at 487,500 euros.

Next year it should be more than 714,700 euros.

If the deceased had a child, this would have to pay tax on 385,700 euros instead of 87,500 euros.

Inheritance tax will rise from 9,625 to 57,855 euros.

"Federal Minister of Finance and FDP leader Christian Lindner has promised that there will be no tax increases with his party," said the CSU MP in the FAZ. In addition, the heads of the coalition had promised not to introduce any further burdensome measures this winter.

"If the planned amendment to the inheritance tax law remains, it would be a double breach of promise."

Tax consultants also advocate higher allowances

The CDU financial politician Michael Meister told this newspaper that there was no getting around the requirement of the Federal Constitutional Court to value real estate in line with the market.

But the assumed interest rate development should be looked at again, after all, the time of absolutely low interest rates is over.

Like the Bavarians, the former Parliamentary Secretary of State for Finance is in favor of reviewing the allowances when the values ​​​​rise.

The financial policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Markus Herbrand, was open to increasing the allowances for relatives in an interview with the FAZ, but expressed doubts as to whether this could be realized in the coalition with the SPD and the Greens.

If such an adjustment were decided in a conciliation procedure by the Bundestag and Bundesrat, that would of course be fine with him, he said.

The tax consultants are also in favor of higher allowances.

In times of skyrocketing prices, it is necessary to keep an eye on them, said association president Torsten Lüth of the FAZ "Otherwise they will come to nothing." The result is tax increases through the back door.

In an application that Bavaria submitted to the Bundesrat on Friday, it is said that the personal allowances for inheritance and gift tax were last increased 13 years ago.

They would have lost much of their relief effect.

In the future, the federal states should be able to determine the amount of personal allowances independently, especially since they are entitled to the revenue.

The Finance Committee of the Federal Council is to deal with it next Thursday.