Central Management

The Central Management of the Federal Ministry of Finance is headquartered at Johannesgasse 5 in Vienna's First Municipal District.

Angelika Schätz

DG Corporate Management and Services

Directorate General I acts as a strategy consultant and service provider for the entire Ministry, participates in shaping the transformation process of the organisational culture, and fulfils the tasks related to the safeguarding of revenue in a modern, customer-oriented and efficient manner. 

Director General Angelika Schätz

Directorate General I sees itself as a motor of reform and is actively shaping the ongoing development of the Ministry of Finance and the entire federal administration. This is reflected in the broad range of tasks, which consists of specialist agendas, coordination tasks and support services.

Service orientation and customer satisfaction – based on innovation, creativity and efficiency – play a decisive role in a modern and networked society based on services, which also includes the public sector. Best-trained and highly qualified employees are the essential prerequisite for this. In addition to personnel management, Directorate General I of the Ministry of Finance bears the central coordination responsibility for the creation of optimal working conditions and for the resource use in the Ministry. This includes the continuous development and modernisation of the organisational structure and the forms of work, as well as efficient, timely area management. Administration is not an end in itself; it must adapt to the needs of society – not vice versa.

In Directorate General I, performance and resource responsibility converge. The areas of Administrative management and organisation of the Tax and Customs administration, as well as of Anti-fraud Measures, which are responsible for performing the taxation, consider the safeguarding of the tax revenue and the execution of tax law as core tasks. They are responsible for the strategic planning of goals and resources, ongoing management and continuous development of the tax and customs administration (tax and customs offices, large-scale company auditing, tax investigation, financial police). The financial administration pursues a target-group-adapted tax compliance strategy for private persons and entrepreneurs, which includes effective and efficient anti-fraud measures as well as measures that make it easier for honest companies and taxpayers to meet their fiscal obligations easily and unbureaucratically.

Strategic objectives

  • Efficient and effective resource use in the Ministry 
  • “In the long term”: strategic personnel and infrastructure management
  • Controlling and governance of participations
  • Consistent optimisation of administrative procedures in the financial administration
  • Safeguarding of the tax revenue
  • Target-group-adapted tax compliance strategy
  • Customer- and service-oriented reshaping of the financial administration

Range of activities

  • Tax ombudsman service
  • Human resource management, health promotion
  • Coordination activities with, among others, Parliament, Council of Ministers, Court of Audit, other ministries, local authorities
  • Tendering and procurement matters
  • Agendas of the Federal Budget Act of the Ministry of Finance and preparation of the federal budget proposal
  • Building and facility management
  • Investment and real estate management
  • Risk management
  • Administrative management and organisation of the tax and customs administration
  • Legislative matters of the gambling monopoly
  • Anti-fraud measures
Dietmar Schuster

DG Budget and Public Finances

The Directorate General for Budget and Public Finances assumes overall responsibility for the Austrian federal budget and its goal is to achieve sustained consolidation of public finances. 

Director General Dietmar SCHUSTER

The core competence of the Federal Ministry of Finance is its overall responsibility for the Austrian federal budget. At an administrative level this responsibility is assumed by the Directorate General for Budget and Public Finances. Its task is to ensure that public funds for the fulfilment of public functions and the provision of public services are used in an efficient, economic and effective manner by applying the principles of budget management, namely transparency, efficiency as well as true and fair view. The Directorate General for Budget and Public Finances draws up and executes the federal budget and is responsible for the financial relations of the federal state with its political subdivisions, social security institutions and the EU.

Strategic objectives

  • long-term and sustained consolidation of public finances
  • safeguarding "value for money" by structural reforms in areas of budgetary relevance

Range of activities

  • Preparation and execution of the federal budget
  • Shaping domestic financial relations and co-ordinating the budgetary policies of the Federal State, the provinces and the municipalities
  • Representation of Austrian interests with regard to the EU budgetary policy and responsibility for financial flows between the EU budget and the Austrian federal budget
  • Support in developing and introducing structural reforms and New Public Management tools in the area of federal administration
harald-waiglein

DG Economic Policy, Financial Markets and Customs Duties

"The Directorate General for Economic Policy, Financial Markets and Customs Duties deals with economic and financial policy at the domestic and international level. In times of crisis in particular, it plays a key role in handling upcoming problems."

Director General Harald Waiglein

The DG Economic Policy, Financial Markets and Customs Duties deals with economic and financial policy at the Austrian, European and global level and plays a leading role in the preparation of supervisory and financial market legislation as well as legislative matters concerning customs duties. Economic policy instruments are developed based on Austrian interests, and take into account domestic and international debate.

Strategic objectives

  • Acting as a centre of competence for economic,financial market and customs policy to develop analytical strategies and optimally implement them based on overall economic considerations
  • Optimally introducing Austrian economic and financial market policy interests into the international debate and playing an active role in policy development
  • Creating an optimal framework for Austrian financial and capital markets as well as domestic companies.

Range of activities

  • Preparing economic policy foundations and analyses (macroeconomic policy, structural policy)
  • Coordinating Ministry of Finance positions on issues of European integration, EU expansion and trade policy
  • Managing Austria's shareholdings in International Financial Institutions (IFI)
  • Establishing initiatives in the Austrian financial market
  • Financial Market Committee, a joint platform of the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA), Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian central bank – OeNB) and Austrian Ministry of Finance
  • Introducing Austria's interests into the international debate, in particular in the areas of banking, capital market and insurance law, and the transfer of EU law into national law
  • Ensuring conformity of national law with EU law in the areas of banking and capital market law
  • Accepting state responsibility, and state responsibility policy of the Austrian federal government
  • Defining criteria and standards for the acceptance of state responsibility
  • Administering the hallmarking system
  • Strategic orientation of export promotion and export financing
  • Accepting export liability in close cooperation with the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB)
  • Customs law, Customs Policy and International and Customs Affair
  • Management of Tariffs, Commercial Policy, Organization of international Projects and Programmes
gunter-mayr

DG Tax Policy and Tax Law

Directorate General VI deals with all areas of tax policy and tax law. It prepares strategic legislative measures at the national and international level and creates a basis for uniform implementation nationwide. 

Director General Gunter Mayr

Tax law at the highest functional level is especially important during times of increasing internationalisation and competition, and during the economic and financial crisis.

Directorate General VI has a broad range of responsibilities that include, for example:

  • Tax policy
  • Tax revenue estimation
  • Income tax and corporation tax
  • Payroll tax
  • Value-added tax
  • EU tax harmonisation
  • International tax law
  • Property tax and real estate transfer tax
  • Capital transaction tax
  • Stamp duties and legal transaction fees
  • Insurance tax (incl. motor vehicle-related insurance tax) and motor vehicle tax
  • Consumption taxes, tobacco monopoly
  • The NoVA (Normverbrachsabgabe) motor vehicle tax
  • Energy taxes and energy tax refunds

Directorate General VI consists of two groups (Tax Policy and Substantive Tax Law) with a total of nine departments.

Strategic objectives

  • Concepts for a stable, sustainable, fair and equitable tax system
  • Ensure the tax system is efficient and implemented uniformly using directives and decrees
  • Secure Austria's position as a location for business and maintain its competitive international tax position
  • Exchange technical information internationally on tax policy developments in other countries
  • Improve ethical tax behaviour to ensure appropriate tax revenues

Range of activities

  • Preparing a list of possible tax reform measures
  • Preparing detailed tax policy concepts
  • Analysing measures with respect to budgetary and economic effects
  • Preparing laws and regulations in all areas of substantive tax law
  • Preparing information specifically for citizens
  • Exchanging information on experience with substantive tax law in other taxation systems
  • Concluding double taxation agreements
  • Representing Austria in international bodies