Tax & Legal

In a case involving a charge to real estate transfer tax (RETT), the Supreme Tax Court granted the taxpayer interim relief in the form of a suspension from execution (i.e. a delayed tax payment), as the question arose as to whether one of the parties to the transaction, a letterbox company, had legal capacity.

In a recently published decision, the Supreme Tax Court clarified that foundations with legal capacity are not subject to trade tax per se. The decisive factor is whether economic business operations within the meaning of the Trade Tax Act are carried out.

In a recent judgment the Supreme Tax Court decided that a family foundation established in the Swiss Confederation and with its administrative headquarters in Germany is not subject to substitute inheritance tax in Germany as it is a foundation without legal capacity.

Donations to a foundation with legal capacity established by a federal state are not exempt from gift tax if, according to the purposes specified in the statutes of the foundation, the donations do not exclusively serve the purposes of the federal state and are not exclusively used for tax-privileged purposes. This is the conclusion reached by the Supreme Tax Court in a recently published decision.

Since the wording of Section 27 (7) of the German Corporation Tax Act does not cover estates, private foundations under civil law with legal capacity are not eligible for the specific determination of the special tax contributions account which is necessary to establish the amounts of tax neutral repayments of capital contributions. This was decided by the Supreme Tax Court in two similar cases. Contrary to the view held by other local tax courts the Supreme Tax Court gives precedence to the strict wording of the law.

Following an earlier decision of the Supreme Tax Court from 2024 on the VAT treatment of the administration (management) of fiduciary foundations, the Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) has commented on the matter and amended Section 1.1 of the VAT Application Ordinance accordingly.

The Transparency Register – as defined in Section 18 of the Money Laundering Act – is a legally prescribed register, which records beneficial interests in companies, partnerships and foundations, which themselves operate on the financial markets. The register became effective on 1 October 2017.

Serious doubts as to whether a distribution of an estate will lead to a change in the shareholder structure of at least 90% of the shares in a property-owning limited liability company within the meaning of Section 1(2b) of the Real Estate Transfer Tax Act (RETTA)

Even after the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union a British limited company is still subject to corporate tax and therefore also eligible as party to proceedings before the fiscal courts. According to the Supreme Tax Court the capacity to participate in tax court proceedings is not determined under civil law, but in compliance with the tax law.

According to a ruling of the Supreme Tax Court published on 10 March 2022, where a financial company acquires a convertible bond with the intention of achieving a short-term proprietary trading profit and sells the shares received as a result of the conversion, this meets the conditions of Section 8b (7) sentence 2 Corporation Tax Act.

Section 2a (5) no. 2 of the German Fiscal Code states that the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) apply accordingly to information relating to identified or identifiable corporations. The GDPR does not contain a right to the inspection of files, the Supreme Tax Court said in a most recent decision.

A foreign permanent establishment of a legally independent person resident in Germany cannot be viewed as employer. This was decided by the Supreme Tax Court in a recent judgment regarding the double tax treaties with the Netherlands, Japan, the UK, Spain, Australia, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Canada, Singapore, Norway, Greece and France.

On 15 December 2023, the Bundesrat approved the partial implementation of the contents of the Growth Opportunities Act in the Act to Promote the Secondary Credit Market. This includes changes to the interest limitation rule and adjustments resulting from the introduction of the Act for the Modernisation of Partnerships.

In its session of 21 February 2024, the Mediation Committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat concluded its negotiations in relation to the Act to Strengthen Growth Opportunities, Investment, and Innovation as well as Tax Simplification and Fairness

On 17 May 2024, the Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) sent a draft bill for the Finance Act 2024 (FA 2024) to the professional associations for comments by 24 May 2024. The draft has now also been published on the MoF website. The law is intended to implement changes to various areas of German tax law which need adjustment. The focus is on adjustments required by EU law and case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the German Federal Constitutional Court, and the German Supreme Tax Court. Furthermore, follow-up amendments to previous legislative changes will be made. This blog summarises the key content. - Meanwhile the Federal Cabinet has approved the draft bill (see Update further below at the end of this post).

At its meeting on 5 June 2024, the Federal Cabinet adopted a government draft for the Finance Act 2024 (FA 2024). Despite numerous revisions, the material amendments from the original draft from 8 May 2024 have been limited. The main changes are shown in italics and red in the following summary of the government draft in italics and red.

On 17 November 2023, the Bundestag approved the Act to Strengthen Growth Opportunities, Investment, and Innovation as well as Tax Simplification and Fairness (Growth Opportunities Act) in the form recommended by its Finance Committee. The Act will be presented to the Bundesrat on 24 November 2023. It cannot currently be ruled out that the Bundesrat will convene the Mediation Committee to discuss individual provisions of the Act (the climate protection investment premium, in particular, will probably be discussed).

Following the recommendation of its Finance Committee, the Bundestag adopted the Finance Act 2024 (FA 2024) in an amended version on 18 October 2024.