Should professionals and farmers pay local business tax? Taxation issues and empirical analysis

Many countries levy local business taxes. In Germany, the "Gewerbesteuer" is the main source of local governments' tax revenue. If there is local taxation of businesses, liberal professionals and farmers should not be treated differently from business enterprises, as it is the case in Germany. All kinds of enterprises based in a municipality should be liable to local business taxation. We analyze the revenue and distributional impact of an integration of professionals and farmers into Germany's local business tax using a micro-simulation model based on representative data from tax statistics. The results show a significant decline in the variability of local business tax revenue across municipalities and regions.