On September 29, 2025, the German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) released a draft regulation regarding the structure and exchange of the Globe Information Return (GIR) as outlined in Section 75 MinStG. The regulation aims to transpose the OECD January 2025 guidance regarding the GIR into German law by standardizing reporting procedures and introducing transition-al simplifications. It also clarifies the role of the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt) as the competent authority and secures the automatic exchange of information.
On December 19, 2024, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) held, that it breaches the free movement of capital under Art. 63 TFEU, if WHT is refunded only to residents being in a loss-making position whereas a refund is not granted to non-residents being in a foreign loss-making position (case C-601/23, Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd. vs. Diputación Foral de Bizkaia).
This judgment confirms, on the hand, the validity of the decision in the Sofina case (C-575/17, November 22, 2018) for which it was unclear whether it established general principles of CJEU jurisprudence for the future. On the other hand, the current judgment extends the Sofina principles to cases where WHT is also withheld on dividends paid to domestic recipients.
On 5 December 2024, the Federal Ministry of Finance published a second draft of the German Pillar 2 Tax Amendment Act (hereinafter referred to as “the draft act”) for feedback by 31 January 2025 as part of the consultation process. In addition to the aspects already included in the first draft [Newsflash, March 21, 2023], this second draft includes further amendments – inter alia – by implementing the OECD Administrative Guidance from June 2024.
Furthermore, the draft act foresees that other provisions concerning international taxation are to be repealed. These include inter alia the license barrier rule under Sec. 4j of the German Income Tax Act, a rule foreseeing the non-deduction of so-called special business expenses according to Sec. 4i German Income Tax Act and the CFC taxation rule ...
The Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) published a draft law on March 20, to implement the ‘Pillar Two’ Directive ensuring a global minimum taxation for multinational groups and large domestic groups in the European Union (so-called Minimum Tax Directive Implementation Act - MinBestRL-UmsG). The publication of the German draft law follows the formal adoption by the EU Council to adopt Pillar Two on December 15, 2022.
