[Diskussionsbeitrag zu Aktienkontrolle und Gemeindevermögen, S. 97]

Felix Somary: Shareholding Controls and Municipal Wealth

This brief stenographic intervention from published proceedings addresses two practical questions concerning a proposed wealth levy: how to prevent fraudulent deductions of shareholdings, and whether municipal and charitable assets should be exempt. Somary’s argument combines administrative verification with the claim that these exemptions need not undermine the levy’s yield.

Responding to Geheimrat Schwarz’s concern about fraud, Somary proposes a dated disclosure requirement:

Wer Aktienbesitz von seinem Vermögen abzieht, hat den Deponierungsort der Aktien an einem festzusetzenden Stichtag anzugeben.

English translation: Anyone deducting shareholdings from their wealth must specify where the shares are deposited on a reference date to be determined.

Only banks, savings banks, and credit cooperatives would qualify as depositaries. His answer thus makes deductions verifiable through designated institutions rather than treating the danger of evasion as an objection to the arrangement itself.

Somary then states his preferred boundary for the levy:

Gemeindevermögen und charitative Vermögen würde ich aus einer Vermögensabgabe ausscheiden.

English translation: I would exclude municipal wealth and charitable wealth from a wealth levy.

He nevertheless accepts that municipalities owning shares could be affected indirectly by a levy imposed on companies. This is a tolerable special case, distinguishing exemption of municipal assets from immunity to every indirect burden.

Finally, he rejects the claim that these exclusions would leave an insignificant yield. Agreeing with Professor Zwiedineck, he considers the assessment derived from the 1913 defence contribution incomparable with current conditions. The necessary upward adjustment would substantially exceed ten or twenty percent. His revenue claim remains qualitative: no calculation is supplied, but the earlier assessment cannot, in his view, establish the fiscal cost of the proposed exemptions.