Until now, the state of Lower Saxony has levied trade tax on offshore wind farm operators in the German Bight that were not assigned to a municipality. The city of Oldenburg had filed a lawsuit against this because an operating company of a North Sea wind farm is based there.

This practice has now come to an end, as in December 2024, the Federal Fiscal Court in Munich overturned a previous ruling by the Lower Saxony Fiscal Court and now ruled in favour of Oldenburg. The reasoning: trade tax is a municipal revenue - a federal state is therefore not allowed to act like a municipality and levy the tax itself. Instead, it must designate municipalities that are authorised to levy the tax.

The state government of Lower Saxony wants Wilhelmshaven to collect the trade tax for the offshore wind farms in future. Revenue of around 110 million euros is expected for 2026. Around 65 million euros of this will then flow to other municipalities via the municipal financial equalisation system, around nine million euros will go to the state and around 36 million euros could remain for Wilhelmshaven's municipal budget, according to the state chancellery of Lower Saxony.

As a result, the Jade city's tax power has increased so much that hardly any key allocations from the state are necessary, the city administration announced. Mayor Carsten Feist (non-party) welcomed the additional revenue, but dampened expectations. The large amount of money will not enable any new projects in the city, but will help to reduce structural budget deficits.

The state government justifies its choice in favour of Wilhelmshaven by stating that without naming a city entitled to levy, those municipalities in which the wind farm operating companies are based would be eligible. However, according to the Ministry of Finance, the majority of these are not located in Lower Saxony - specific locations were not named for reasons of tax confidentiality. According to the Ministry of Finance, there are also several objective reasons in favour of the city: for example, it has grid connection points and transformer stations for feeding in offshore electricity and a relevant landing point. This means that Wilhelmshaven has a central function for the energy transition and grid expansion, among other things.

kdk, NDR