Tax & Legal

In today’s judgment, the General Court of the EU held that Union law precludes the German practice whereby the taxpayer's good faith in fulfilling the conditions for the margin scheme is not taken into account already during the tax assessment procedure but rather considered later in separate proceedings for equitable relief.

To the extent that the minimum tax results in definitive taxation resulting from an ‘inverse accounting effect’, equitable relief measures under Section 163 of the General Tax Code should be given serious consideration, the Supreme Tax Court said in a most recently published decision.

On 24 April 2026, the Bundestag passed the Ninth Act Amending the Tax Consultancy Act and Further Tax Legislation, as amended by the Bundestag’s Finance Committee.

Following their committee meeting on 04 September 2022, the coalition parties have presented a further package of measures (known as the Third Relief Package) for relief in the current crisis.

The Supreme Tax Court has referred to the ECJ on a refusal to grant the same inheritance tax allowance on a holding in Canada that would have been available on a domestic investment.