Liebhaberei im UstG

: Ein Leitfaden für die Praxis

Abstract

The amendment of hobby regulation in 1997 has led to a clearly recognisable downward trend in the number of administrative court rulings on hobby judgements. The promulgation 2021 finally provided a legal framework and clarifications on the content of forecasts. Forecast calculations have been the main reason for hobby judgements in recent years. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to find out which activities are particularly often labelled as “hobby” and what are the consequences during an empirical analysis. Theoretical foundations were developed in order to understand “voluptuary” (= hobby). In the end 215 judgements were analysed for the periods of 2016 to 2023 and 1996 to 2003. The period under review is the period in which the decision was made at the administrative court, not the year in the judgement itself. The classifications would have become too complex with trade, income, corporations and VAT tax that were dealt with at the same time but were about different years. Finally, the results of the analysis were visualised and interpreted, and a compact practical guide was created to provide more legal certainty. The decreasing trend towards lodging an appeal at the administrative court is particularly due to the fact that there are already many findings and decisions in comparison to the period of 1996 to 2003. Furthermore, it can be seen that the hobby regulation of 1997 has had a dampening effect, which can be seen particularly well in the shortened duration of proceedings. In recent years, the duration of proceedings has been reduced by two years. It has been established that luxury goods and lifestyle management are often considered to be hobby activities for income tax purposes. Subsequently it became apparent that small rentals are most problematic as this is were by far the most judgements were issued. Condominiums in particular are one of the most popular forms of capital investment in Austria, which is also reflected in the judgements.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	German (Austria)
Supervisor	Marina Luketina (Supervisor)