In a most recent judgment, the Supreme Tax Court held a free gift to be subject to gift tax where the wife, before the marriage and according to a prenuptial agreement, receives a piece of property from her partner as compensation for waiving her claim for equalization of accrued gains between spouses (Zugewinnausgleich), for post-marital alimony, and for allocation of household goods. The Supreme Tax Court further decided that the waiver itself does not reduce the enrichment of the wife and the assessment basis for gift tax.
The European Court of Justice decided today that the Commission must pay interest on fines it has unduly imposed in competition matters and which it has provisionally collected. That interest is intended to compensate, at a standard rate, the undertaking concerned for the loss of the amount in question.
Where an employer contractually obliges himself to make several payments to an employee in connection with a termination of employment, the payments will only be considered as a single uniform compensation payment if there is clear evidence that all instalments were paid "as compensation for lost income or expected loss of income".
The Supreme Tax Court has held that compensation for loss of office is taxable in the state of residence under the German/Swiss tax treaty and not in the state of employment. A mutual agreement between the two revenue authorities to the contrary is not to be applied for lack of an adequate legal basis.
