Proposed amendments of reporting obligations for global minimum tax

Cor­po­rate groups sub­ject to the glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax must ge­ne­rally sub­mit a mi­ni­mum tax re­port to the com­pe­tent tax aut­ho­ri­ties in each coun­try that has im­ple­men­ted the glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax and where the group is re­pre­sen­ted by a com­pany or per­ma­nent es­ta­blish­ment.

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Purpose of the DAC9 Directive

The OECD had al­re­ady de­ve­lo­ped a stan­dard tem­plate for a GloBE In­for­ma­tion Re­turn, or GIR for short, for this re­por­ting (OECD, Re­port of 17 July 2023). The EU Com­mis­sion in­tends to trans­pose this stan­dard tem­plate into EU law with the draft di­rec­tive pre­sen­ted on 28 Oc­to­ber 2024 (known as the DAC9 Di­rec­tive).

In ad­di­tion, the draft di­rec­tive is in­ten­ded to de­fine the frame­work for the ex­change of in­for­ma­tion bet­ween the EU Mem­ber Sta­tes, so that the re­qui­re­ment to sub­mit the GIR in dif­fe­rent EU Mem­ber Sta­tes could be eli­mi­na­ted. For these pur­po­ses, the use of a uni­form data for­mat is to be spe­ci­fied so that the re­ports can be ex­chan­ged au­to­ma­ti­cally bet­ween the EU Mem­ber Sta­tes in­vol­ved. The pos­si­bi­lity of fur­ther que­ries bet­ween the EU Mem­ber Sta­tes should also be coor­di­na­ted.

Note: The draft DAC9 Di­rec­tive still must go th­rough the EU le­gis­la­tive pro­ce­dure. If the di­rec­tive ul­ti­mately be­co­mes ef­fec­tive, the EU Mem­ber Sta­tes shall trans­pose its con­tent into na­tio­nal law by 31 De­cem­ber 2025.

Reporting obligations in Germany

En­ti­ties of a GloBE group lo­ca­ted in Ger­many must sub­mit a mi­ni­mum tax re­port - or ac­cor­ding to the OECD a GIR - to the Fe­deral Cen­tral Tax Of­fice. If there is more than one group en­tity lo­ca­ted in Ger­many, one of these en­ti­ties can sub­mit the mi­ni­mum tax re­port on be­half of the others.

In ad­di­tion to GIR sub­mis­sion re­qui­re­ments Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax de­cla­ra­tion ob­li­ga­ti­ons must be con­side­red. GloBE group en­ti­ties lo­ca­ted in Ger­many form a so-cal­led mi­ni­mum tax group wi­thin the mea­ning of the Ger­man Mi­ni­mum Tax Act (Min­dest­steu­er­ge­setz). Wi­thin a Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group only one en­tity (the head of the Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group, so-cal­led Grup­penträger) is ob­li­ged to file the mi­ni­mum tax de­cla­ra­tion with the Ger­man tax aut­ho­ri­ties (in ge­ne­ral the lo­cal tax of­fice) and to pay top-up ta­xes in Ger­many, if any. If lo­ca­ted in Ger­many, the UPE of the GloBE group is also the head of the Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group. In case of a non-Ger­man UPE, a Ger­man pa­rent en­tity is the head of the Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group, if this en­tity is the pa­rent en­tity of all other Ger­man group en­ti­ties. Other­wise, the non-do­mestic UPE can de­ter­mine the head of the Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group. A top-up tax payable by the head of the Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group may trig­ger com­pen­sa­tion pay­ments bet­ween Ger­man group en­ti­ties. This could also im­pact the re­co­gni­tion of to-up tax ac­cru­als and should be che­cked in de­tail.

The head of the Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group can also be no­mi­na­ted to sub­mit the mi­ni­mum tax re­port to the Fe­deral Cen­tral Tax Of­fice.

Note: On 17 Oc­to­ber 2024 the Ger­man tax aut­ho­ri­ties publis­hed gui­dance for the no­ti­fi­ca­tion of the head of the Ger­man mi­ni­mum tax group. The no­ti­fi­ca­tion must be sub­mit­ted no la­ter than two months af­ter the end of a tax pe­riod, thus for the first time by 28 Fe­bru­ary 2025. The tech­no­lo­gi­cal frame­work for the elec­tro­nic no­ti­fi­ca­tion is ex­pec­ted to be es­ta­blis­hed by the Ger­man tax aut­ho­ri­ties as of 2 Ja­nu­ary 2025.