Richard Reisch · 1904
Richard Reisch’s intervention in the official hearing of 2 December 1903, published in 1904, tests the consistency of an expert’s reasoning through two questions. Its concern is whether tax concessions benefit tenants or remain with property owners.
The first question challenges the predicted effect of temporary tax exemptions for new construction:
Zu Frage 22 hat der Herr Experte der Meinung Ausdruck gegeben, daß die Baufreijahre eine Ermäßigung der Mietzinse der peripherisch gelegenen Gebäude nach sich ziehen werden.
English translation: On question 22, the expert expressed the opinion that the years of exemption from building tax would bring about a reduction in rents for buildings situated on the periphery.
Reisch juxtaposes this prediction with the expert’s earlier account of rent-setting:
Das scheint mir nun im Widerspruch zur Beantwortung der Frage 13 zu stehen, welche der Herr Experte dahin beantwortete, daß gewiß nicht der rechnungsmäßig vielleicht mögliche Mietzins, sondern jener eingehoben wird, welcher dem benachbarten angepaßt ist.
English translation: This now seems to me to contradict the answer to question 13, which the expert answered by saying that certainly it is not the rent perhaps possible on the basis of calculation that is charged, but the rent aligned with that of neighbouring properties.
If neighbouring rents determine what landlords charge, a reduction in their tax costs does not by itself explain lower rents.
The second question applies the same consistency test to abolishing surcharges on the rental-value tax. The expert had recommended a spirits monopoly coupled with transferring real-property taxes to autonomous public bodies, potentially enabling abolition of those surcharges. Yet he had rejected reducing the underlying tax as benefiting only owners, not the public. Reisch asks whether removing established surcharges would have precisely the same effect. His brief intervention thus demands a consistent account of who benefits from tax relief, without supplying an alternative reform programme.
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