Federal Finance Academy
The Federal Finance Academy (BFA) in the Federal Ministry of Finance is the federal government's central tax law training institution. On the basis of Art. 108 Para. 2 Sentence 2 Basic Law i. V. m. According to Section 7 (1) of the Tax Official Training Act, the federal government maintains a federal finance academy to carry out supplementary studies and to train civil servants in the higher service of the tax administrations of the federal states . It was opened on January 15, 1951 under the name Academic Federal Finance School by the first Federal Minister of Finance, Fritz Schäffer, in the north wing of Siegburg Abbey . On December 20, 1993 it was moved to a new building in Brühl . The tasks are performed equally in Brühl and Berlin . Organizationally, the Federal Finance Academy is part of Department Z of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
BFA's mandate: Basic and advanced training for executives in tax administrations
The Federal Finance Academy (BFA) is a unique institution that reflects in a special way the interaction between the federal government and the federal states in the state. With the BFA, the federal government provides the central nationwide training and further education facility for executives in tax administrations.
According to the distribution of competences in the Basic Law , the federal government has the legislative competence for almost all taxes (apart from local expense and consumption taxes). In accordance with the provisions of the financial constitution (Article 106 GG), the income from taxes flows to the federal government, the states and the municipalities . The administrative competence is regulated according to Article 108 GG based on the earnings competence: The federal government administers its taxes (e.g. energy and vehicle tax), the states administer their taxes (e.g. inheritance and gift tax, real estate transfer tax) and on behalf of the federal government, taxes to which the federal government and the states are jointly entitled These are the most important taxes as they have the highest income and therefore largely finance the budgets of the federal and state governments: namely sales , income and corporation tax . With € 426.2 billion in 2012, they generated a total of 71.0% of the total tax revenue (see also the BMF monthly report of July 22, 2013).
To ensure that taxes are levied uniformly on the basis of federal laws , the federal government and the states not only have to constantly coordinate the application of the tax laws ; The members of the tax administrations must also be trained and networked in the same way, d. H. transnational, can act.
To this end, the federal government maintains the BFA, which has the constitutionally founded mandate (Article 108 paragraph 2 sentence 2 GG), the uniform training and further training of civil servants in the higher service of the tax administrations of the states in accordance with the Tax Official Training Act (StBAG) and the training and education To carry out examination regulations (StBAPO) as well as the specifications agreed with the federal states; the training of members of the upper and middle service is carried out by the federal states. Accordingly, the BFA imparts tax-related knowledge and management skills and provides a forum for a network of tax officials in management positions across the federal and state levels (around 3% of all members of the tax administrations).
In view of its importance for the federal states and the federal government, the BFA is integrated into the BMF as an independent unit in terms of organization, personnel and budget. It was founded in 1951, was based in Siegburg for many years and moved to Brühl in 1994. In 2011 she started teaching in Berlin .
As part of the training, since 1953, newly recruited civil servants have been introduced to the duties of the higher service of the tax administration; They are taught tax expertise as well as the methodological, social, economic and international skills that are necessary for a management position in tax administration. The introductory period is twelve months. It consists of supplementary studies at the BFA of four weeks each (A, B, C course) and a practical briefing in the tax offices and intermediate authorities (regional tax offices, state offices) of the federal states (Section 5 (2) StBAG; Sections 25 bis 30 StBAPO). In the following year, they take part in a total of one-month continuing studies (D modules) (Section 5 (3) StBAG).
All civil servants in positions that are assigned to the higher service (in particular (main) subject heads, tax office heads and corresponding managers of the middle authorities) can participate in the training program. The federal and state governments also work together in the development of nationwide training measures on subjects of fundamental importance (Section 7 (2) StBAG). The BFA thus makes a significant contribution to enforcing the constitutional requirement of uniform and uniform enforcement of tax laws in the federal and state levels, which is derived from Article 3 paragraph 1 GG and Article 20 paragraph 3 GG as well as the requirements of the financial constitution in Article 105 ff . Because the tax authorities have to set and levy taxes equally in accordance with the law.
Cornerstones for the realignment of the BFA
The reason for the realignment is the expectations of the federal states and the federal government for the future training and further education of tax officials in the higher service against the background of the tasks that are increasingly being performed by the federal states and the federal government as well as the acquisition and retention of qualified employees due to the consequences of demographic development.
Accordingly, the realignment was based on the following key points: In the medium term, the BFA should perform its tasks as equally as possible at the Brühl and Berlin locations; Organization and administration should be based on efficient units. In addition, future perspectives are to be developed for fields of activity that can be performed in addition to the core tasks according to § 7 StBAG. Criteria for the decision on the proposals or recommendations developed by a project group with the support of task-critical investigations by the leadership and control work unit in the BMF and the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues (BADV) were:
- Strengthening teaching
- Administration serves teaching
- Function determines responsibilities
- The president oversees teaching and administration to achieve common goals. The realignment took effect on October 1, 2013.
Strengthening teaching and teaching
Through the organizational realignment - combined with individual measures - the teaching and the teachers are sustainably strengthened. The lecturers are the full-time lecturers of the BFA (head of department and their lecturers) as well as the guest lecturers. On this basis, the quality of teaching can be continuously improved.
Orientation of the BFA organization towards teaching
The addressee-related deployment of teachers is characteristic of the academy. During the training, especially the supplementary studies, the full-time teachers at the BFA primarily convey the basics of tax law. Around 700 experienced practitioners, in particular from tax administrations, tax courts, business and science, work as guest lecturers each year in the training. The full-time teachers at the BFA manage their use by attracting and retaining suitable guest lecturers and ensuring that the lessons are professionally coordinated with the goals of the BFA and the requirements of the managers from the tax administrations. This ensures the quality of the training in the long term.
This dual task (own teaching activities and management of the guest lecturers) requires effective organization. The full-time lecturers should be able to concentrate on these tasks. For this reason, the tried and tested transparent organization in the teaching areas is retained, which guarantees the formation of a specialist focus and thus an effective representation of each subject area by at least two full-time teachers. In the supplementary studies, the full-time lecturers of the BFA should teach.
For these tasks, four organizational areas are necessary and sufficient; they are largely relieved of administrative tasks and are basically responsible for a tax area - regardless of whether an event is offered in Brühl or Berlin.
The head of department I basically has the same tasks as the other department heads; In addition, as the teaching coordinator , he controls the interdisciplinary tasks including the assignment of the teaching staff during the year. For this purpose, the supporting activities inseparably linked to the tasks of the teaching areas (e.g. course planning) of the teaching administration have been assigned to him. As a coordinator, he is not the superior of the department heads and does not have the function of a permanent representative of the president. In this way, a hierarchy appropriate to the size of the BFA is created with only two levels (president and head of the teaching departments and administration). Additional committees for internal coordination are unnecessary and the risk of communication deficits is reduced.
The new organization creates clear responsibilities. The president, the heads of the departments and the administration have management and management duties. The efficient organization also enables the further expansion of the function of the BFA as a forum for the transnational exchange of experience and information. The need for this has increased in view of the increasing networking of the activities of tax administrations, especially with foreign countries (e.g. multilateral tax audits).
Improvement of the individual competence of the teachers
The full-time lecturers at the BFA must have proven their suitability for teaching as well as for ministerial work in the BMF. This allows the desired exchange between teaching and a speaker position in the BMF (tax department). Accordingly, the activity in the BFA is generally limited and should be taken into account in the context of personnel development. To ensure that teaching maintains the expected high quality, a focus teaching obligation is introduced for the full-time lecturers in the supplementary studies and the evaluation process is geared towards quickly identifying and implementing necessary improvements.
In order to continuously improve didactic skills, the teachers take part in professional educational training at regular intervals. To refresh their practical experience, they will be employed in a tax office for several months. This helps to better interlink the supplementary studies at the BFA with the practical briefing at the tax office, for which the federal states are responsible.
Efficient administration supports teaching and teaching
The creation of a separate unit for general administration, which reports directly to the President, relieves the teaching departments, which can now concentrate fully on teaching and managing the guest lecturers. General administration tasks are in particular: organization, budget, IT, property and room management, office services, public relations, library, collection of financial history / tax museum . Duplicate structures were dismantled as far as individual tasks of the general administration (e.g. travel expenses and fee accounting) can be bundled for efficient fulfillment in one place in the area of the BMF including BADV .
Medium term: Equal performance of tasks in Brühl and Berlin
The BFA offers its courses, seminars and other events either in Brühl or in Berlin. In the medium term, the BFA should perform its training and advanced training tasks as equally as possible at both locations; structural, organizational and personnel management aspects must be taken into account.
The aim is to make the best possible use of the different advantages of the two locations according to the learning objectives and the content of the events. Which event is offered at which location is to be decided according to the following criteria: Necessity of the involvement of members of the tax department of the BMF as lecturers, insight into the legislation through the opportunity to visit the Bundestag and Bundesrat or to hold discussions with members of parliament and state representatives, possibilities the connection to institutions and persons outside the federal and state tax administrations (e.g. foreign tax experts), involvement of speakers from business associations, inclusion of (tax policy) events (e.g. Berlin tax talks; colloquia of the Institute of Finance and Taxes) in the course of seminars, opportunities to build and maintain networks.
According to this, it basically follows that the supplementary studies with the A, B and C courses take place in Brühl - with the exception of two weeks of the C course, which are carried out in Berlin due to the focus on international tax law. The so-called D modules and the advanced training events are offered in Brühl or Berlin. Events on the following topics should generally be held at the Berlin location: international tax law, European law, forum for senior executives (e.g. tax department heads, presidents of the regional tax offices or state offices, head of the tax office), current tax policy issues, special tax events.
BFA online: AULA
The advanced training courses can be accessed using the AULA tool. The invitation and the program can be called up for a single event in test mode. On the remaining space exchange you can see whether there are still free allotments available. The documentation provides information on how to get to the locations in Brühl, Berlin or Königs Wusterhausen. Registrations or late registrations are made in most authorities via the training officer.
Financial history collection
The Finance History Collection was part of the Federal Finance Academy from 1961 to 2015 . The display collection comprised 1200 exhibits on the history of duties and taxes from the 5000-year history of public finances, mainly from the areas of tax, customs and state assets. The existing exhibits of the tax museum are now in the German Customs Museum in Hamburg and are partly on display there.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ StBAG - Tax Official Training Act. Retrieved October 11, 2019 .
- ^ Publisher: Contact & Locations - Federal Ministry of Finance - Ministry. Retrieved October 11, 2019 .
- ↑ Organizational plan of the BMF (as of August 27, 2019) - Federal Ministry of Finance - Ministry. Retrieved October 11, 2019 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 49 '53.1 " N , 6 ° 52' 57.3" E