News
Which German Administrative Tax Data Is Available for Research – and What New Possibilities Are Emerging?
On 19 February 2025, we hosted a pilot-workshop on German administrative tax data at ZEW Mannheim, bringing together (tax) researchers from Mannheim and experts from the Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis) . Annette Kristiansen and Moritz Wittmaack provided updates on existing datasets and recent developments, while MannheimTaxation researchers shared their latest projects using German tax data.
The three key takeaways from the event:
- Significant progress has been made in recent years. The Business-Tax-Panel and the updated Taxpayer-Panel 2 are major steps forward, and more and more datasets are becoming linkable for research.
- Access to data remains a critical challenge. Without proper remote access, this is the biggest bottleneck for future research on German firms and taxpayers. Data providers need more funding to set up a smart and modern way of data access!
- Exchange is crucial. Many challenges can only be solved through open dialogue. Understanding both the needs of researchers and the limitations of data providers is essential.
We are excited that the Netzwerk empirische Steuerforschung (NeST) is giving German tax research a major push!