Tax & Legal

The tax exemption from real estate transfer tax (RETT) in the event of restructuring within a group under Section 6a of the RETT Act also applies to cases where a dependent second-tier company is merged with a subsidiary of a group parent company, even if in the five years after the transaction 25 percent of the shares in the parent company are transferred to a new shareholder. In his decision the Supreme Tax Court held that the subsidiary must be regarded as “controlling company” within the meaning of the RETT Act.

Pending before the ECJ are currently two questions of relevance regarding the German regulation of consolidated tax groups for VAT purposes (VAT group). In her Opinion on both cases the Advocate General takes the view that the sole taxable person is, in principle, the VAT group itself and not (as under German VAT law) the controlling member of the group.