Program Overview

Financial Sciences

Learning content

The program covers the following topics:

• Basic understanding of the tasks of the state from a financial perspective
• Criteria of economic efficiency, justice and overall economic stability of public budgets as the basis for a systematic approach to central questions of normative and positive tax theory
• Basic concepts of finance in general and financial tax theory in particular
• Characterization of the German tax system in comparison to other representative OECD countries
• Comparison of the most important types of taxes (income, corporate and sales tax) in their country-specific form
• Tax technology and tariff theory
• Critical discussion of fundamental principles of taxation and their significance for tax theory
• Incentive effects of income taxation in comparison to consumption taxation, the incidence analysis and, derived from this, the optimal tax theory in the normative sense
• Criteria for a constitutional theory of taxation based on realistic assumptions about the political decision-making process
• Derivation of the actual financial policy decisions
• Dealing with current tax reforms and reform efforts from a financial perspective

Learning objectives

Upon completion of this course, students will have acquired the following knowledge and skills:

• You will learn the fundamental principles of the tax system in Germany in comparison to other representative OECD countries.
• You know the problems of tax technology and can analyze the different tax tariffs for their progression properties.
• You will learn the principles of fair taxation and be able to derive the corresponding progression property for the applicable tax rate from the various sacrifice theories.
• You can analytically prove the distorting effects of taxation on the labor supply, savings and investments in both static and dynamic analysis.
• Within the framework of tax effectiveness theory, you are able to recognize possible spillovers in the static and dynamic investigation.
• With your in-depth knowledge, you are finally in a position to critically assess reform proposals from important institutions with regard to their tax revenue and incentive effects.