Berlin’s Harnack House hosted a two-day workshop (26–27 November 2025) on Geopolitical Conflict, Trade and Sanctions, organised by Kai A. Konrad from the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance and Marcel Thum from TU Dresden. The workshop brought together leading economists and political scientists using innovative empirical and theoretical approaches to study key questions in geopolitics and geoeconomics.

Am 15.11. traf sich ein großer Kreis ehemaliger Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftlerinnen der Abteilung „Unternehmens- und Steuerrecht“ des MPI für Steuerrecht und Öffentliche Finanzen gemeinsam mit aktuellen Mitarbeitern in München zu ihrer Jahrestagung.

At the end of October, our institute welcomed a scientific delegation from the Japanese Federation of Certified Public Tax Accountants' Association and their “tour guides,” the vice president of the chamber, Hideaki Ozaki, and the highly respected professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo, Minoru Nakazato. Two of our alumni, Dominik von Armansperg and Maximilian Haag from the law firm Pöllath + Partner, explained the highly complex and time-consuming practice of inheritance and gift tax law in Germany.

Globalization, digitalization, and increasing mobility of people and services are throwing the distribution of taxation rights out of balance, explains Professor Dziurdź at the beginning of his lecture: “The link to physical presence is no longer appropriate or ‘fair.’”

The budget of the EU is regularly a bone of contention – notably for those Member States that are net contributors. Prof. Iain Begg explores options for a better model of EU finances.

In order to minimize social welfare losses due to tax disincentives, Research Affiliate Prof. Dr. Erik Röder takes a closer look at the taxation of capital gains and presents concrete reform proposals that could also contribute to greater tax fairness.

With her project CompLex, our Research Affiliate Corinna Coupette aims to develop a computational theory of legal systems that will help researchers, policymakers, and the general public to better understand and address the difficulties experienced by legal systems around the world.

Launched in 2020, the Max Planck Summer School on the Political Economy of Conflict and Redistribution (PolEcCon) celebrated its fifth anniversary and offered a wide-ranging program featuring many international experts.

As part of the lecture series of the Max Planck Hub Fiscal and Social State, Professor Erin Scharff provided insights into the detailed composition of municipal budgets in the US system of fiscal federalism.

On July 7 and 8, 2025, the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance held an international conference on “Local Public Finance and Fiscal Federalism Around the World” at the Harnack House in Berlin. Over two days, scholars at all stages of their careers discussed their current research on fiscal federalism on four continents at the intersection of political, regional, health, and behavioral economics.
 

On Wednesday, July 2, professors and younger academics gathered for the second joint “Current Hour” of the Max Planck Institutes for Social Law and Social Policy and for Tax Law and Public Finances to discuss the recent ECJ judgement on “golden passports” from Malta.

How sustainable is the current trade tax law? On June 16 Dr. Daniel Dürrschmidt addressed this question and presented his thoughts on the territoriality principle applicable here and its scope as part of the lecture series “Future Issues in Tax Law”.

At a conference in Berlin, international scholars gave seventeen presentations and held countless discussions in search of an answer...

On 22 May 2025, we celebrated Gabriele Auer's 66th birthday and her retirement. She was Professor Schön's long-standing assistant. It speaks for itself that so many colleagues and even former doctoral students from the Institute came to celebrate her and say goodbye in person.

Professor Clint Wallace from the University of South Carolina Rice School of Law visited the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance from May 12 to 16 to present his research topics and exchange ideas with researchers and international guests.
In 2019, the Institute launched a visiting research program to recognize and support young scholars who are researching and teaching tax law at a foreign university.

Dr. Aitor Navarro, a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, has been appointed to a tenured associate professorship in tax law at Carlos III University in Madrid, Spain. He will effectively take over the post in September 2025.

On May 5, the second of six lectures in the series “Future Issues in Tax Law” took place. Professor Daniela Hohenwarter-Mayr compared Austrian and German group taxation rules and examined the European Union's proposals for practical feasibility.

In the course of several crises since 2008 the European Union has become more active and independent. This new face of an "Activist European Union" was at the centre of Prof. Floris de Witte's well-attended lecture on 11 March, which he gave in the framework of the series "The Future of the Fiscal and the Social State in the European Union", organised by the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy and the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.

Die Vortragsreihe zur „Zukunft des Steuer- und Sozialstaates in der Europäischen Union“, 2024 zusammen mit dem Max-Planck-Institut für Sozialrecht und Sozialpolitik ins Leben gerufen, um sich entscheidenden Fragen zum künftigen Rahmen der Europäischen Union zu widmen, startet in ein neues Jahr.

“International Tax Law and International Tax Policy” was the title of a seminar held for LMU Munich students at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance on January 9 and 10, 2025.

In his lecture, Armin von Bogdandy reflected on the EU's current constitutional development and presented a concept of republicanism that builds on the principles laid down in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and forms a coherent approach, not least for the transformation of the European fiscal and social state.

A global economic power struggle has broken out between China and the US. Against this backdrop, Kai A. Konrad analyses China‘s possible motives and the expected effects of the Chinese state’s large international public investments and identifies four factors that help determine which country will assume the role of leading investor, innovator and exporter.

We are very pleased to announce that the dissertation 'Grenzen der Personalisierung des Rechts' of our former research associate, Philip Maximilian Bender, has been awarded as 'Juristisches Buch des Jahres'. This prestigious award recognises outstanding academic work in the field of law.

Key flagship initiatives such as the European Union’s ‘New EU forest strategy for 2030’ attempts to protect Europe’s forests. But what impact do such measures have on forests in countries unable or unwilling to protect them, asks economist Afiq bin Oslan in his study, ‘When Environmental Protections Backfire at Home and Abroad’.

Dr. Savvas Kostikidis has been awarded the Science Prize of the Munich Chamber of Tax Consultants (StBK) 2024 for his dissertation 'Residence and Economic Substance of Subsidiary Corporations in International and European Tax Law'.

With the 29^th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in November 2024, Kai A. Konrad gave a plenary lecture on 'How to avoid the rush to burn' at the 38^th Annual Meeting of the International Conference of Public Finance on 17 October.

In his speech as part of the lecture series “The future of the tax and welfare state in the European Union”, Prof. Andrea Sangiovanni called for the EU to become a cosmopolitan organisation.

Dr. Dr. Corinna Coupette, a former doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, was appointed Assistant Professor of Computer Science by Aalto University in Helsinki. From September 2024, she will build up the Telos Lab to conduct research at the intersection of law, technology, and society.

The Max Planck Summer School, entitled "Political Economy of Conflict and Redistribution (PolEcCon)," was held at the Harnack House in Berlin from 29 July to 1 August.

The topic was as hot as the temperatures on 15 July, when Brigid Laffan, Emeritus Professor at the European University Institute, gave her well-attended lecture on "Public Finance, Crises and EU Integration" in the framework of the Max Planck Hub Fiscal and Social State in Munich.

On 12 July, Wolfgang Schön, Chairman of the "Vereinfachte Unternehmensteuer" Expert Commission, presented the Commission's report and recommendations to Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner.

The interdisciplinary conference organized by our Institute's two departments took place on 24 and 25 June 2024 at the Harnack House in Berlin.

Our Research Associate, Roberto Ramos Obando, has been honoured with two awards.

On 8 May, Alicia Hinarejos, Professor at McGill University in Montreal, lectured on the acceleration, constitutional pitfalls and limits of tax integration in the European Union.

Dr. Uwe Corsepius, former Head of the European Department of the Federal Chancellery and former Secretary-General of the Council and the European Council in Brussels, lectured on the European reform debate at the Max Planck Hub Fiscal & Social State on 29 April 2024.

Dr. Gustavo Weiss de Resende and others were honoured with the Wolfgang Gassner Science Award 2024 (Sponsorship Award) as part of the Wolfgang Gassner Memorial Lecture at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Max Planck Law Fellow Ruth Mason, Professor at the University of Virginia, and Michael Knoll, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, convened a high-level group of experts to discuss the concept and the most relevant cases of tax discrimination under U.S. constitutional law and under EU law.

Professor Koen Lenaerts, President of the Court of Justice of the European Union, gave the inaugural lecture of the Max Planck Hub Fiscal and Social State in Munich on 18 January 2024.

Our scholarship holder and former research associate, Thomas Poschenrieder, successfully took the oral examination to conclude his doctoral procedures in December 2023.

Our Institute Director Prof. Dr. Kai A. Konrad receives an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Basel.

On 16 November, our former research associate Philip M. Bender received the Bavarian Culture Prize 2023 by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts. He was awarded in the science category for his dissertation entitled "Grenzen der Personalisierung des Rechts".

From 12 to 13 October, the interdisciplinary conference "Governance and Its Funding in the 21^st Century" took place at the Harnack House, the conference venue of the Max Planck Society, in Berlin.

Our Senior Research Fellow, Dr Raisa Sherif, investigates in a field study in India the effects of environmentally friendly behaviour.

Our former Senior Research Fellow, Professor Dr Birke Häcker, has been awarded an honorary doctorate at the Faculty of Law at Stockholm University.

Dr Caroline Glenk has been awarded the Albert Hensel Prize 2023 for her law dissertation thesis written at the MPI.

Marco Serena, Ph.D. was appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Economics at CUNEF University, Madrid.

"The Political Economy of Conflict and Redistribution (PolEcCon)" Summer School 2023 took place from 1 to 4 August at the Harnack-Haus in Berlin.

PhD student Melanie Kühn, former research associate at the Institute, successfully took the oral examination in July to conclude her doctoral procedure.

Our senior research fellow as well as habilitation candidate and adjunct lecturer at the Faculty of Law at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Dr. Johanna Stark, has been awarded the Princess Therese of Bavaria Prize.

University of Virginia Law Professor awarded Prestigious Max Planck Law Fellowship to Study Taxation and Social Policy in Federated States.

Professor Ariel Jurow Kleiman and Professor Marilyne Sadowsky visited the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance and provided insights into their research work.

At the 74^th Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society, Dr Jonathan Schindler was honoured with the Otto Hahn Medal for his already several times awarded dissertation "Geldwäschegesetzgebung und Steuerrecht".

PhD students Carina Schwarz, David Rüll and Gustavo Weiss de Resende, former research associates at the Institute, successfully took the oral examination in June to conclude their doctoral procedures.

On 10 May, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Schön gave the keynote speech at the Hessische Landesvertretung in Berlin on the topic of "Corporate Taxation in the European and International Context – quo vadis?“.

Dr. Caroline Glenk has been awarded two more prizes for her dissertation "Verlustverrechnung bei Personengesellschaften und anderen transparent besteuerten Gesellschaftsformen. Eine rechtsvergleichende Analyse zwischen Deutschland, Frankreich und den USA".

On 25 April 2023, Prof. Patrick Cramer, President-designate of the Max Planck Society, accompanied by Dr Simone Schwanitz, Secretary General, and Dr Sabine Gieszinger, Institute Supervisor, visited our Institute.

Prof. Dr. Erik Röders Habilitationsschrift über den „Nutzungsausgleich im Bürgerlichen Recht“ wurde von der JuristenZeitung auf die exklusive Liste der “Juristischen Bücher des Jahres“ aus 2022 gesetzt.

The Selection Committee has unanimously decided to grant the Caroline von Humboldt Award 2022 to Dr Corinna Coupette based on her excellent academic career and her exciting interdisciplinary research.

Dr Jonathan Schindler has been awarded the Science Prize of the Munich Chamber of Tax Advisors 2022 for his dissertation ‘Money Laundering Legislation and Tax Law’ (Geldwäschegesetzgebung und Steuerrecht).

Dr. Lisa Windsteiger is moving to the new Ludwig Erhard ifo Research Centre for Social Market Economy and Institutional Economics, a branch of the ifo Institute in Fürth. There she will fill the position of Deputy Director.

Dr Jonathan Schindler has been awarded the Albert Hensel Prize of the Year 2022 for his dissertation ‘Money Laundering Legislation and Tax Law’.

The global community wants to reduce the use of fossil resources such as oil and natural gas with bans and taxation measures and thus significantly reduce CO2 emissions. But these efforts could trigger a run on the world’s remaining fossil fuel reserves. A study by Kai A. Konrad and Kjell Erik Lommerud envisions a solution to slow down or reverse such a “rush to burn”

PD Dr Caroline Heber, a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, was appointed to a professorship at the University of Vienna. She will take over the chair for tax law in February 2023.

Dr Caroline Glenk and Dr Jonathan Schindler, until recently doctoral students at the Institute, have been awarded the Promotion Prize of the LMU Faculty of Law for their graduate thesis.

A short review of the SYMPOSION on 20 May 2022 on the occasion of the retirement of Professor Dr. h.c. Rudolf Mellinghoff as President of the Federal Supreme Finance Court.

Prof. Dr. Erik Röder, a former research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, was appointed full professor of civil law, German and European business law and corporate tax law at the University of Mannheim. He took over in May 2022.

How to increase vaccination rates by autumn, without any compulsion is shown by an international research team including the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
They found that people’s willingness to get vaccinated is related to the presumed trust the medical doctors have in the vaccines.

Is the Corona recovery fund a good model for an Ukraine reconstruction fund? PD Dr. Caroline Heber argues: in order to pre-fund such aids from loans, European treaties need to be adapted.

Dr. Valentin Jentsch, LL.M. was appointed Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Corporate Law at the University of St.Gallen.

Dr. Sven Simon received the Wolfgang Ritter Prize of the Year 2022 for his dissertation “Essays on the Trade-Offs for Non-Compliance and Deceptive Behavior”.

PD Dr. Caroline Heber MTax (Sydney) has been awarded the Gustav Figdor Prize for Law by the Austrian Academy of Sciences for her habilitation thesis "Enhanced Cooperation and European Taxation".

Fraud scandals in companies make the headlines again and again. They raise the question of whether and how to increase the compliance of teams.

PD Dr Caroline Heber MTax (Sydney) has received the Kardinal Innitzer Prize for her habilitation thesis "Enhanced Cooperation and European Taxation".

European Union countries are issuing joint debts of €750 billion for the Covid-19 recovery fund. In a recent article, Caroline Heber argues that the recovery fund contravenes European budgetary law and that the European Union does not have the competence to incur debts. Amendment to the European Treaties and European budgetary laws would be required to prefinance the recovery fund from loans.

The Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance mourns the loss of a good friend. Frans Vanistendael, Professor Emeritus at the University of Leuven (Belgium), one of the outstanding representatives of international and European tax law, passed away on 27 October 2021.

A study shows that not only states but also the top players among tax experts stand to benefit from mandatory disclosure rules.

An economic study shows that dishonest people consciously choose situations in which they can cheat.

Deborah Fries has been awarded the Science and Research Prize of the Hamburger Kreis für Sanierungs– und Insolvenzrecht for her dissertation on "fiscal privilege".

Professor Charles Gustafson delivered the "Wolfgang Schön Distinguished Lecture" at the 23rd Congress of the Association of European Tax Law Professors (EATLP).

PD Dr Caroline Heber MTax (Sydney) has been awarded the 2021 Wolfgang Gassner Academic Prize (the main prize category) for her postdoctoral thesis “Enhanced Cooperation and European Taxation”, which she completed at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance.

Kai Brückerhoff, a former research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, has been awarded the title of "Young Elite - Top 40 Under 40" of 2020 in the category "Politics and Government" by the business magazine "Capital".

“Die Steuerumgehung” by Prof. Dr. Christine Osterloh-Konrad, a former senior research fellow at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance, is on this year's list of recommended legal literature.

Dr. Johanna Stark, a senior research fellow at the Institute, has been awarded the Otto Schmidt Prize for publications in the field of international law.

Alongside France, Germany is the driving force behind the current OECD proposal to set a lower limit to tax competition using an international minimum tax. Dr. Erik Röder argues that the proposal will not relieve Germany in any meaningful way from the constraints of international tax competition, but could act as a catalyst for a long overdue fundamental reform of the German CFC-legislation.

Savvas Kostikidis, a research associate at the Institute, has won this year’s "Award of the Alumni Association of the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance" for his article “Influencer Income and Tax Treaties”.

In a small two-class society democratic redistribution might only work if the size ratio between the rich and the poor is not too large, a study at the Institute shows. If the number of poor is larger than the square of the number of rich, in a game theoretical model the latter, although in a minority, push through their interests.

PD Dr. Caroline Heber, senior research fellow at the Institute, has successfully completed her habilitation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. She is now authorized to teach tax law, financial law and European Union law.

When the G20 finance ministers meet in mid-October, they will be negotiating a paradigm shift in international tax law: which state will be allowed to tax corporate profits in the future, profits generated not just by tech giants such as Amazon or Google, but by almost every company which operates internationally? Hardly anyone is as familiar with the 500-page draft paper as Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Wolfgang Schön from the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, who also knows how the project of the century could fail.

Dr. Johanna Stark, a senior research fellow at the Institute, was awarded for her doctoral thesis with one of Germany’s most highly remunerated dissertation awards in the field of economics and social sciences.

Is German fiscal policy prepared for stormy times? At the Munich Tax Symposium, Wolfgang Schön shows ways for our tax law to respond to the Covid-19-crisis.

Dr. Corinna Coupette was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal for her research at the interface between law and computer science.

Difficult times, in which nobody knows exactly what to do, also offer us the chance to push through individual interests. Dusty proposals and draft laws are put back on the table as a panacea: If only the politicians had listened to us sooner! Now is the time!

'Golden Passport' programmes not only make the EU vulnerable for money laundering, tax evasion and corruption, but also create false incentives from a welfare economics perspective, Kai A. Konrad, Director at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance and Ray Rees, emeritus Professor of Economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, argue on VoxEU.org.

Julian Pröbstl, research assistant at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance argues that resorting to the ESM credit line is to be preferred to issuing coronabonds because the former is legally more certain and can be implemented faster.

Die Diskussion um eine angemessene Besteuerung von Google, Apple, Facebook und Amazon ist in eine Debatte um die weltweite Neuordnung der Besteuerungsrechte zwischen den Staaten gemündet. Doch müssen die konzeptionellen Grundlagen der „neuen Weltsteuerordnung“, erarbeitet unter Federführung der OECD, gründlicher durchdacht werden. Wir sollten uns die Zeit dafür nehmen. Denn damit wird ein Systemwechsel eingeläutet, dessen strukturelle Folgen auf mittlere und lange Frist die gesamte Weltwirtschaft betreffen könnten.

Andreas Martin Fleckner, former head of the Otto Hahn Group on Financial Regulation at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, joined the law faculty of Humboldt University of Berlin in February and was appointed professor of Private Law, Roman Law, and Commercial Law in May.