Editorial

Dear Readers,

The development of a married couple’s assets frequently differs greatly over the years, in particular, with regard to their business activities. In the case of a community of accrued gains, such gains have to be equalised, at the very latest, when a spouse passes away. In this October edition of our magazine, in a practical case study, our Key Issue report presents the civil law and tax consequences of equalising those accrued gains at the ‘last possible moment’. In addition to this, in the next edition of our magazine, the structuring options for optimisation during one’s lifetime will then be highlighted. The second report in the Tax section sheds light on the legal requirements in the case of online education programmes that foreign providers must comply with. Apart from VAT aspects, the stipulations under the - rather unknown - Distance Learning Protection Act have to be observed if the aim is to avoid undesirable consequences. Finally, we discuss a recent decision by a tax court on a case where frequent visits to a holiday home, which was rented out to some extent, became a tax trap.

In the Accounting & Finance section we consider the tax incentives with which the Federal Government would like to provide for more investments. In doing so, we focus on the reduction in the corporation tax rate, which will have a significant impact on the accounting recognition and measurement of deferred taxes.

We kick off the Legal section with an analysis of a law-forming ruling by the Federal Court of Justice on change-of-control rules (which are not regulated by law). A hat-trick follows - in three identical rulings, a court in Hesse humbled three companies that had wanted to declare their (building) workers as being self-employed. We then reinforce the impression that Germany has long ceased to be a land of poets and thinkers, but instead of registers. We provide an overview of the important features of registers and differentiate between the obligation to disclose information in the Federal Gazette as well as those obligations vis-à-vis the company register, the transparency register and the commercial register. 

The short reports in this edition cover a broad range of issues that span the doubts about the admissibility of a double assessment of real estate transfer tax in the case of purchase agreements, and include risks associated with disclosing an SMS TAN, right through to the new legal view of the fiscal administration with respect to VAT on the direct consumption of electricity.

We wish you an interesting read. 
Your PKF Team