Anyone who inherits a company does not receive a cash box, but responsibility

Ulrich Creydt, tax consultant and managing director of Ypsilon GmbH Steuerberatungsgesellschaft: "Anyone who inherits a company does not receive a cash box, but responsibility: jobs, risk and liability – often without liquid funds. The SPD's planned inheritance tax reform does not punish property, but entrepreneurial initiative and economic progress. It hits precisely those who want to take on responsibility and thus sends the wrong signal: it punishes commitment and makes it more difficult for the generation to change generations in SMEs, the backbone of the German economy. The effects of the inheritance tax reform on the housing market should be viewed particularly critically: owner-occupied homes will rightly continue to be protected, while housing companies that create housing for many will be taxed harshly. To finance the tax, they could be forced to sell apartments at high prices. This is driving rents further up – exactly where affordable housing is urgently needed."

Philip C. Hetzer, Managing Partner, DAHLER Invest: "In principle, there is nothing to be said against standardising inheritance tax and against higher allowances. It seems strange that lower allowances are to continue to apply to rented residential property than to business assets. After all, there is a high social interest in a stable rent level and intergenerational ownership. Especially in the big cities, heirs of apartment buildings remain subject to inheritance tax even with an exemption of 1 million euros and the probability that the house will be offered for sale after the death of the inheritance remains high."

Dominik Barton, Managing Partner (CEO), Barton Group: "From our point of view, the SPD's key tax proposals are a frontal attack on German SMEs. These not only lead to a possible existential threat to German medium-sized companies, but also to a possible destruction of jobs at the same time. In our view, the points are not well thought out, but ideologically driven and massively attack the backbone of the German economy."