Tax & Legal

On 27 June 2025, the Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) published a draft to implement Directive (EU) 2023/2226 (DAC8) and at the same time opened public consultation on the draft bill.

To adopt the EU requirements on automatic exchange of information under Directive for Administration Cooperation (DAC) to extend to the reporting by crypto-asset service providers on transactions (transfer or exchange) of crypto-assets, the Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) published a draft bill for a DAC8 Implementation Act (DAC8-draft) on 4 November 2024 which is to come into force on 1 January 2026.

The European Court of Justice decided that a Member State may not impose additional obligations on an online service provider established in another Member State.

On 3 February 2023, the German Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) published a circular on certain application issues regarding the Platform Tax Transparency Act.

In an answer to a preliminary request from the Belgian Constitutional Court the European Court of Justice held that the obligation for a lawyer to inform other intermediaries involved is not necessary and infringes the right to respect for communications with his or her client.

The German Central Tax office reminds of the reporting requirements pursuant to Section 138 (2) sentence 1 No. 4 of the German Fiscal Code and the consequences due to Brexit.

The Ministry of Finance has published a new form for reporting foreign relationships according to Section 138 (2) of the General Tax Code (GTC). The new form replaces the form originally included in the Ministry of Finance’s guidelines on the application of Section 138 (2) and Section 138b of the GTC dated 5 February 2018.

The ECJ has held that an obligation on a German bank to report assets held by German customers of its Austrian branch to the German tax authorities does not restrict the bank’s freedom to establish itself in Austria.