State budget (GDR)
The state budget of the GDR comprised the budgets of the municipalities, the districts, the districts and the entire state. In the language of the GDR it was the totality of the money funds that were available to the state organs. The state budget was an integral part of the five-year plans . The GDR Ministry of Finance was responsible for ensuring the liquidity of the state budget .
Nesting principle
In contrast to federal states like the Federal Republic of Germany , the GDR was organized as a central state . The districts and local authorities had no financial independence. The budgets of the subordinate levels were at the same time part of the budgets of the superordinate levels according to the nesting principle. According to the principle of “ democratic centralism ”, the higher levels had the right to give instructions downwards.
Accordingly, the state budget comprised the entire income and expenditure of the public sector .
This principle of the unity of all public budgets was first described in Section 1 of the Public Budget Reform Act of December 15, 1950.
Creation
The basis for drawing up the budget was the State Budget Code (STHHO) of February 17, 1954, which was amended in 1968.
In terms of content, the procedure and structure were specified by the planning regulations. The state budget was formally approved by the People's Chamber in accordance with Article 88 of the constitution of the GDR of October 7, 1949 (the 1968 constitution does not mention the budget law of the People's Chamber) . Until the turn of 1989, however, this was a purely formal act, as the People's Chamber was neither freely elected nor was it actually able to determine the content.
The budget as part of the five-year plan
The budget was part of the five-year plan in the planned economy of the GDR. The plans of the state- owned enterprises were linked to it through subsidies from and profit transfers to the state budget.
State budget revenue
“Through the transfer of product-related levies (PA) and production fund levies (PFA) to the state budget as well as imposed net profit transfers, most of the surplus product generated in the economic units was concentrated in the state budget as so-called 'centralized net income'. The individual responsibility and financial strength of the economic units remained correspondingly limited. "
A product-related levy (PA) was initially paid to the state budget from the company's revenues . This roughly corresponds to the function of a sales tax .
After deducting the PA and the company's costs, there was a profit. The production fund levy (PFA) was transferred to the state budget from this. This was comparable to a corporate wealth tax . Of the remaining net profit, part of state-owned companies (which made up the vast majority of companies) was transferred to the state budget as a net profit transfer and part was left in the funds of the companies . In this respect, the net profit transfer was similar to corporation tax , but there was no fixed tax rate, instead the net profit transfer was set at an absolute level for each company. From 1984 the contribution to social funds , a kind of payroll tax , was added.
These corporate transfers represented by far the largest item on the revenue side.
| year | Income in billion marks | Share in state revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 1951 | 3 | 11.5% |
| 1955 | 13.7 | 35.8% |
| 1960 | 30.6 | 60.3% |
| 1965 | 31.7 | 56.1% |
| 1970 | 37.4 | 54.8% |
| 1977 | 77.5 | 63.4% |
Accordingly, taxes played only a minor role in government revenue. The income tax yielded about 5% of the budget.
The expenditure of the state budget
The expenditure of the state budget is more difficult to track because, for reasons of propaganda , the expenditure was not always shown where the money was actually used. For example, in the 1970s, a large part of the officially identified social expenditure was the subsidy for social security in deficit. In particular, by allocating funds to companies, things that were not very popular, such as armaments expenditures, could be financed outside of the budgeted items.
Budget deficits; Debt in western countries
The officially published state budget showed a slight surplus every year. The balance of payments was kept strictly confidential and was not publicly known before the fall of the Wall. In 1970 the GDR owed two billion West marks . On November 1, 1989, Egon Krenz announced to Mikhail Gorbachev that the GDR owed around 49 billion West marks abroad. In 1989 alone, expenditures (about 18 billion US dollars) exceeded revenues (5.9 billion US dollars) three times.
literature
- Günther Hedtkamp and Karl-Heinz Brodbeck: Finance of the GDR; in: Concise Dictionary of Economics (HdWW), Volume 3, edited by Willi Albers, Anton Zottmann, 1981, ISBN 3-525-10258-5 , pages 197-211, online
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ the municipal budgets were part of the unified state budget cf. German Bundestag: Printed matter 13/5064
- ↑ Law on the Reform of the Public Budget of December 15, 1950, Journal of the GDR p. 1201.
- ^ Law on the State Budget Code of February 17, 1954, Journal of the GDR p. 207.
- ^ Law on the State Budget Code of the GDR of December 13, 1968, Journal of Laws of IS 383.
- ↑ Statistical Pocket Book of the GDR 1988, p. 108.
- ↑ Der Spiegel 42/1995 / Hans Halter : "We want to consume" .