Was kann das Allgemeine Verwaltungsrecht vom Steuerrecht lernen?

Abstract

The article is the written version of a lecture for the forum of the discussion group “Administrative Law” given at the 80^th Congress of the German Constitutional Law Teachers’ Association, October 2021, in Mannheim. The author ascribes tax law (and even social law) a pilot function for designing a public monetary law, both in a substantial and in a procedural sense. A legal framework of public monetary law is missing from general administrative law, which at best recognizes specific instruments of administrative acts for monetary public claims. General administrative law must be suitable for mass cases too. Against this, the general tax law has created for this purpose a specific tax return (“tax application”) which makes self-assessment subject to later verification/control by a public administrative act. This tool has become part of a public E-Government based on the platform “ELSTER online” (Electronic Tax Declaration online), which has been inter-administratively designed by the Länder (States) and monitored by the Bund (Federal) as a result of an cooperative federalism. The E-Tax-Government is embedded in a legal environment of compliance duties of citizens and other legal entities under additional use of public IT-risk management systems regarding the law and equality of taxation. The author recognizes the need to establish cooperative forms of action in the Abgabenordnung (General Tax Code), and to adapt specific legal institutions of the general adminstrative law, such as the public (administrative) law contract, self-binding administrative assurance, ruling and binding administrative information. Conversely, it would be preferable if the general administrative law would rule these action forms even in delimitation to preliminary decisions.