Das Bundesverfassungsgericht und die Erbschaftsteuer

In 2014 the German Federal Constitutional Court issued a judgement on inheritance tax law. For the third time in its history, the court held the German inheritance tax law to be unconstitutional.
While the court established certain dogmatics in its previous rulings that allowed a strict constitutional analysis of the inheritance tax law, it now seems as if the court has abandoned these specific dogmatics. The newly applied dogmatics are certainly less restrictive which gives the legislators a wider margin of appreciation when creating new inheritance tax law. The author shows this change of applied dogmatics through a thorough analysis of the 2014 judgement. The publication further deals with the subject of whether inheritance tax law falls under the remit of the federal level or the regional level. A chapter on the newly emerged theory that the welfare state principle („Sozialstaatsprinzip“) affects the inheritance tax law can also be found.