While the financial crisis is biting into the real economy, more and more companies are expecting, or are already, facing profit downturns.  Taxes on non-income values become, in view of decreasing profits, a more important factor in the tax burden on companies. Against this background, the purpose of this study is to overview the importance of non-income taxes in the German tax system and to benchmark non-income taxes relative to total corporate taxes. Doing so, our approach can be split in two main parts: Firstly we will provide an overview of the German tax policies in the period from 1990 through today (2008). The tax system will, however, not be exposed in detail, instead, emphasis is placed on major developments in the field of non-income taxes. In a second step the effective tax burden of non-income taxes will be determined and analyzed. The quantification of the effective tax burdens will be based on the methodological approach of the European Tax Analyzer.