Tax & Legal

When purchasing a property for which the buyer and seller have agreed to split the real estate transfer tax equally the tax office requires a verifiable justification when claiming the full amount from the buyer. In its decision the Supreme Tax Court also discussed the question as to whether and when an so called “single (uniform) chargeable transfer” may be assumed.

The European Commission decided to refer Germany to the European Court of Justice for having failed to remedy the infringement of the free movement of capital (Article 63 TFEU and Article 40 of the EEA Agreement) due to its discriminatory tax treatment of reinvested capital gains upon sale of real estate located in Germany.

The Federal Ministry of Finance has sent the Federal States (“the Länder”) a draft bill to amend the Real Estate Transfer Tax Act for discussion. The main points of this bill are set out below: However, the draft may still be subject to changes in the discussion process or may even fail altogether.

The Federal Ministry of Finance is planning to introduce a bill based on the proposals made by the Finance Ministers' Conference in November 2018 in relation to the Real Estate Transfer Act (RETT Act). It is currently envisaged that the changes, which are likely to be discussed in the Cabinet at the end of April 2019, should be included in the Finance Act 2019.

The finance ministry has accepted an option for VAT on the sale of a business property expressly agreed only for the event that the view of the parties of the transaction as a (VAT-free) sale of an entire business should prove to be unfounded.