With the Mi­ni­mum Ta­xa­tion Di­rec­tive Im­ple­men­ta­tion Act of De­cem­ber 21, 2023, the EU re­qui­re­ments for the in­tro­duc­tion of a glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax were trans­po­sed into na­tio­nal law. As a re­sult, large me­dium-si­zed cor­po­rate groups are also ob­li­ged to check from the 2024 fi­nan­cial year whe­ther their pro­fits are sub­ject to an ef­fec­tive tax bur­den of at least 15 % world­wide. In ad­di­tion to any re­sul­ting ad­di­tio­nal tax bur­dens and high de­cla­ra­tion costs, com­pa­nies will be faced with ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tive tasks in par­ti­cu­lar. Me­dium-si­zed com­pa­nies, which are of­ten struc­tu­red as part­nerships in Ger­many, have some ad­di­tio­nal spe­cial fea­tures to con­sider. In this bro­chure, RSM Eb­ner Stolz out­lines the main fea­tures of the glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax re­gu­la­ti­ons in Ger­many and dis­cus­ses the spe­cial fea­tures for me­dium-si­zed com­pa­nies.

As of 2024, large cor­po­rate groups have to as­sess for the first time the ex­tent to which a top-up tax is payable due to the re­qui­re­ments of the glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax (Pil­lar II). In this con­text, even if all group en­ti­ties are re­si­dent in ju­ris­dic­tions with a no­mi­nal cor­po­rate tax rate far above the mi­ni­mum tax rate of 15 %, the is­sue of the glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax is not sett­led. Howe­ver, tem­porary sim­pli­fi­ca­ti­ons might be ap­plica­ble. Our tool-ba­sed ap­proach with the RSM Eb­ner Stolz Tran­si­tio­nal CbCR Safe Har­bour Quick Check pro­vi­des an in­itial as­sess­ment.

This guide to Doing Busi­ness in Ger­many is in­ten­ded to pro­vide an in­itial over­view of the po­li­ti­cal, eco­no­mic, le­gal and tax en­viron­ment for in­ves­ting in this coun­try, so as to fa­ci­li­tate po­ten­tial in­ves­tors’ de­ci­sion-ma­king about a Ger­man busi­ness com­mit­ment.

Long thought im­pos­si­ble, a bre­ak­th­rough was achie­ved in 2021 when al­most 140 coun­tries agreed to in­tro­duce a glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax. The ba­sic prin­ci­ples de­ve­lo­ped by the OECD and the G20 are now to be quickly im­ple­men­ted into EU law and ap­plied con­sis­tently in the EU. The new ru­les could be­come a big chal­lenge for a large num­ber of group en­ter­pri­ses.

Since 1 July 2020, cer­tain cross-bor­der tax ar­ran­ge­ments must be re­por­ted to the Ger­man tax aut­ho­ri­ties (DAC6 re­por­ting ob­li­ga­ti­ons). Af­ter publis­hing the draft of a let­ter of in­ter­pre­ta­tion in July 2020, Ger­many’s Fe­deral Mi­nis­try of Fi­nance (BMF) un­vei­led the fi­nal ver­sion on 29 March 2021.

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.