Limited tax liability applies to royalty payments between non-residents

In a let­ter da­ted 6 No­vem­ber 2020, the Fe­deral Mi­nis­try of Fi­nance (BMF) com­men­ted on an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Ger­man li­mited tax lia­bi­lity on roy­alty pay­ments, an is­sue that has emer­ged as con­tro­ver­sial in the re­cent past. The BMF’s le­gal po­si­tion may have si­gni­fi­cant con­se­quen­ces for in­ter­na­tio­nally ope­ra­ting groups of com­pa­nies. The ea­sing of the le­gal re­qui­re­ment that had been ori­gi­nally plan­ned no lon­ger ap­pears to be on the cards.