Sewage fee
The wastewater charges are municipal taxes that are levied by the municipalities on the basis of a statute of charges for the use of a public wastewater disposal facility ( sewerage and sewage treatment plant ) from users ( usage fees ). A user fee can only be charged for the actual use of a public facility. The mere possibility of use is not sufficient for this (unlike with the contribution ).
The legal basis for the issuance of corresponding fee statutes are the local tax laws of the individual federal states.
The term wastewater fee is not identical to the term wastewater tax .
The wastewater charges can be:
- Discharge fee for discharging wastewater into a public drainage facility ,
- Disposal fee for the disposal of faecal sludge from domestic sewage treatment plants,
- Basic fee for the provision and provision of the drainage facility (= use of operational readiness),
- Minimum fee which - in contrast to the basic fee - includes a certain service.
According to a decision by the Federal Administrative Court, there are no constitutional objections to the charging of basic fees for public institutions. The minimum fee must be based on the average minimum usage of the drainage system. Basically, the average water consumption of a one-person household should be taken into account.
Wastewater within the meaning of the municipal fee statutes is water that has changed its properties through domestic, commercial, agricultural or other use and the water that runs off together with it in dry weather (dirty water) as well as the runoff water collected from precipitation from the area of built-up or paved areas (precipitation water ). The municipalities thus adopt the term "wastewater" in the statutory definition of the legal definition contained in Section 54 (1) of the Water Management Act (WHG) .
Fee scale
The fees are calculated according to the extent to which the users make use of the drainage system ( sewage system and sewage treatment plant ). The fee standards must take account of the principle of equality and the principle of equivalence . The principle of equivalence is related to the expression of the general fee, on constitutional law based federal law principle of proportionality and as such states that the fee is not out of proportion to the support of the public administration services power must stand. For pure wastewater dischargers, the wastewater fee must therefore be reduced compared to dischargers of wastewater and rainwater.
The amount of wastewater supplied to the drainage system is decisive for the assessment of the fee (reality scale). The exact determination of the amount of wastewater supplied to the drainage system and thus the calculation of the discharge fee according to the actual scale is usually not possible or only possible with a disproportionately high effort. Drainage charges are therefore calculated according to a probability scale, with the modified fresh water scale serving as the probability scale. The modified fresh water standard has been recognized by the jurisprudence as a suitable and permissible standard for the assessment of wastewater charges. With the modified fresh water standard, the amount of waste water is the amount of water taken from the water supply system and from the self-generation system minus the amounts of water that can be proven to have been used or retained on the property. Small amounts are usually excluded from the deduction in the municipal drainage statutes, which is permissible according to the case law of the Federal Administrative Court. More recent court rulings see a small amount of 20 m³ / year excluded from the deduction as too high. The VGH Baden-Württemberg is even of the opinion that amounts of water that can be proven to have not entered the sewer system due to calibrated water meters are always deductible.
With the wastewater fee according to the modified fresh water standard, the discharge quantities for wastewater and rainwater are compensated.
However, if the cost of rainwater disposal in the chargeable costs of the entire drainage system is more than 12%, separate fees for the discharge of wastewater and rainwater must be calculated and levied (see split wastewater fee ). In case of doubt, the municipality bears the burden of proof that the levying of a split wastewater fee can be dispensed with.
calculation
The calculation of the wastewater fees must be based on the principles set out in the local tax laws of the individual countries. According to these country-specific regulations, all municipalities are entitled to levy wastewater fees. A majority of the federal states even oblige their municipalities to charge the users of a drainage system ( sewage system and sewage treatment plant ) for wastewater charges.
The fee revenue is to basically the 'allowable according to commercial principles costs cover, but not exceed ( cost recovery principle ). In addition to the operating costs, appropriate depreciation and an appropriate return on the investment capital are also included in the applicable costs.
In all countries, before determining the depreciation, the fixed assets must be reduced by the income from contributions. In principle, this also applies to the benefits received. Instead of reducing the fixed assets by the contributions and grants, special items can be formed (recognized as a liability) from the contributions and grants and released to income. In Bavaria, the investment capital can not be reduced by the donations. The additional proceeds achieved in this way are then to be added to a reserve, which is subject to interest and earmarked for investments or for the maintenance costs of the drainage system.
As a rule, depreciation is to be calculated on a straight-line basis from the acquisition and production costs , although the replacement fair values can also be used as an alternative . The states of Bavaria and Saxony determine that reserves are to be created from the additional income resulting from a depreciation of replacement fair values compared to a depreciation of acquisition and production costs, which are to be returned to the wastewater disposal facility including an appropriate interest rate.
When calculating the interest on the investment capital, in all federal states the capital portion raised from contributions and donations may not be included in the calculation of the imputed interest. The interest is to be calculated from the capital reduced by the depreciation (residual capital) (residual value method). In some federal states, the interest calculation can alternatively be based on the value of the invested capital reduced by half (half value or average value method).
In the case of facilities for waste water disposal, the part of the expenditure that is attributable to the connection of public roads, paths and squares (road drainage share) is not taken into account in the applicable costs .
The collection of basic fees and minimum fees are permitted, unless this is expressly excluded. Only in the states of Bavaria and Thuringia are municipalities prohibited from charging users with minimum fees.
When calculating the fees, the costs for a period of several years (= assessment period) can be taken into account, which, depending on the federal state, is between 2 and 5 years.
The calculated total costs (minus the basic fees) divided by the discharge quantities determined according to the modified fresh water standard result in the discharge charge. If some of the users discharge both waste water and rainwater into a communal drainage facility, while some of the users only discharge waste water, it is necessary, with regard to the principle of equality and the principle of equivalence, to reduce the fee appropriately for pure waste water dischargers.
A recalculation must be carried out after the assessment period has expired. Cost coverages that result at the end of a calculation period due to the recalculation are to be compensated in the following assessment period. Cost shortfalls should be compensated for during this period.
Individual evidence
- ↑ BVerwG, judgment of August 1, 1986 No. 8 C 112.84
- ↑ BVerwG, judgment of September 16, 1881 No. 8 C48.81
- ↑ BVerwG, judgment of April 14, 1967 No. VII C 15.65
- ↑ BVerwG, decision of March 28, 1995 No. 8 N 3.93
- ↑ VGH-BW, judgment of March 19, 2009 Az. 2 S 2650/08
- ↑ BVerwG, decision of March 25, 1985, No. 8 B 11.84
- ↑ BayVGH, judgment of March 31, 2003, Az. 23 B 02.1937