Dunning system toothless

City of Innsbruck has to write off millions of euros

Mayors are ultimately responsible for finances: Johannes Anzengruber and predecessor Georg Willi (left).(Bild: Christof Birbaumer)

A report by the Innsbruck City Court of Audit shows: The dunning system is toothless, fee notices are incorrect and the outstanding debts run into the millions. At the same time, the city has to borrow fresh money from the bank.  

Innsbruck's budget is, as reported, crashing at every turn. The city recently had to take out a 35 million euro loan in order to maintain operations.

Many fines not paid
Against this backdrop, the Control Office report on the City of Innsbruck's outstanding debts is explosive. Apparently, countless citizens and companies have arrears in the form of outstanding fees with the city without the latter being in a position to take decisive action against them.

The result of an apparently (too) lax dunning system: more and more receivables have to be written off and the city is losing millions of euros.

The real scandal is that notices contain the most serious formal errors and are actually null and void.

StR Markus Stoll, Das Neue Innsbruck

More than half is written off 
Although the period examined by the City Court of Audit ends with the first quarter of 2023, the figures speak for themselves: while there were 14,160 claims filed in 2021, these rose to 16,390 in 2022 and extrapolated to around 20,000 in 2023.

Outstanding claims from enforcement orders amounted to around EUR 3.5 million per year in recent years, while outstanding enforcement proceedings amounted to EUR 2.6 million in 2022 and EUR 1.7 million in the first quarter of 2023.

"In total, the municipal tax collection department was able to collect monetary claims of 2.7 million euros in 2022," according to the report recently discussed by the municipal council. "This corresponds to a collection rate of 41 percent."

Appeals can overturn decisions
The report by the City Court of Audit also lists deficiencies in the notices, which mean that these can be overturned immediately through appeals. "The city does not have its receivables management under control," judges DNI-StR Markus Stoll. On the one hand, the IT changeover is said to be responsible for this, and on the other, turbulence as a result of changing new appointments to the position of finance director.