A12 is no stranger to the field: For years, the platform has served as the technological foundation of ELSTER, the central online tax portal that processes more than 50 million tax returns annually. The move to open source was made in close coordination with the Bavarian State Office of Taxes—thereby making accessible a platform that has grown directly out of the requirements of public administration and has been tested in live operation. Other current references include the platform for the nationwide OZG application portal serving 20 chambers of tax consultants and the replacement of over 100 legacy applications used by a German state administration.

The core of the platform follows a model-driven approach: data models, application logic, user interfaces, and workflows are not programmed but rather described as structured models. The runtime environment interprets these models and uses them to generate line-of-business applications. This reduces sources of error, increases maintainability, and enables significantly faster adaptation to new legal or technical requirements—a decisive advantage for government agencies that must regularly deal with changing conditions. Thanks to the platform’s openness, A12 applications can also be extended with custom code to include specific functions, such as connecting to external interfaces.

The codebase includes the complete platform core as well as the runtime environments. Government agencies, municipalities, and public institutions can view and review the source code of the Community Edition directly on openCode and operate it at their own discretion—independent of individual vendors and in compliance with the requirements of modern IT governance.

mgm is a member of the Open Source Business Alliance and GovTech Germany. At SCCON 2026, mgm will demonstrate at Booth 112/hub27 how government agencies can use A12.

mgm technology partners GmbH
Munich, Germany
Hub27, Stand 112
Website: www.mgm-tp.com