Wiesbaden. Wiesbaden may introduce water consumption tax despite the complaint of the Hessian Ministry of the Interior. This was legally permissible, the administrative court of the state capital (7 K 941/24.Wi). In last year, the local supervision of the Interior Ministry had stopped the water consumption tax decided by the Wiesbaden city council. In addition to the water fees, a tax of 90 cents per cubic meter of water should be charged from the first liter in the 300,000-inhabitant community. In order to achieve a more economical handling of water, there are several options, according to previous information from local authority in water law, but a water tax is not mentioned there, unlike fees. In addition, the city should not make a profit with water fees, but only cover the costs, argued the local supervision. A water consumption tax in particular affects low -income households above the border to the purchase of financial state help. The administrative court, on the other hand, judged the fact that vital goods such as drinking water should not be taxed, is not a applicable legal principle, as the example of sales tax shows. The planned Wiesbaden water consumption tax is high enough for steering effects without leading to a “strangling effect”. The fact that it hit low -income households above the so -called transfer limit than others is also the case with any other taxation. With a view to the intended savings of water, the court also referred to dryness phases as a result of climate change: In the past five years, Wiesbaden claimed that the water has been forbidden from streams and lakes in summer. The judgment is not yet final. According to its own statement, the court has approved the appeal to the Hessian Administrative Court, “because the admissibility of municipal water consumption tax is a fundamental question that has not yet been decided by the case law”. (dpa)
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