MoPeG adjustments and interest barrier pass Bundestag and Bundesrat

Fol­lo­wing the re­com­men­da­tion of the Fi­nance Com­mit­tee on 13 De­cem­ber 2023, some pro­vi­si­ons of the Growth Op­por­tu­nities Act were in­cor­po­ra­ted into the Se­con­dary Cre­dit Mar­ket Pro­mo­tion Act. The Bun­des­tag pas­sed the law on 14 De­cem­ber 2023. On 15 De­cem­ber 2023, the Bun­des­rat gave its ap­pro­val to the fol­lo­wing mea­su­res.

• The law ma­kes the tax ad­just­ments which are ne­cessary due to the le­gal chan­ges ari­sing from the Act on the Mo­der­niza­tion of Part­nership Law (Mo­PeG) that come into force on 1 Ja­nu­ary 2024.
  • As­so­cia­ti­ons with le­gal ca­pa­city and as­so­cia­ti­ons wi­thout le­gal ca­pa­city are le­gally de­fi­ned and dif­fe­ren­tia­ted from one ano­ther (Sec­tion 14a AO). To this end, con­se­quen­tial amend­ments will be made to va­rious tax laws such as the cor­po­rate tax law (KStG) and the in­heri­tance tax law (ErbStG).
  • For the pur­po­ses of real es­tate trans­fer tax, part­nerships with le­gal ca­pa­city will con­ti­nue to be re­gar­ded as joint ow­ners with joint as­sets (Sec­tion 24 GrEStG). The re­gu­la­tion is ap­plica­ble for a li­mited pe­riod un­til 31 De­cem­ber 2026. Thus the cur­rent sta­tus quo for the par­ti­ci­pa­tion of part­nerships in si­tua­ti­ons re­le­vant to real es­tate trans­fer tax is en­su­red un­til the end of 2026.
  • The tax lia­bi­lity of cor­po­ra­ti­ons with their re­gis­te­red of­fice ab­road and ma­nage­ment in Ger­many is ex­pli­citly re­gu­la­ted and ap­plies ir­re­spec­tive of their clas­si­fi­ca­tion un­der Ger­man ci­vil law (Sec­tion 14b AO).
  • It is cla­ri­fied that the prin­ci­ple of joint and se­veral lia­bi­lity con­ti­nues to ap­ply to the at­tri­bu­tion of as­sets and con­ti­nues to be as­su­med for in­come tax pur­po­ses for part­nerships with le­gal ca­pa­city (Sec­tion 39 (2) No. 2 AO).
• The in­te­rest bar­rier is mo­di­fied. The mo­di­fi­ca­ti­ons cor­re­spond to the chan­ges al­re­ady pro­vi­ded for in the Bun­des­tag re­so­lu­tion of 17 No­vem­ber 2023 on the Growth Op­por­tu­nities Act.You can read more about this here.
• In ad­di­tion, the re­lief pro­vi­ded by the gas/heat price brake is ex­clu­ded from ta­xa­tion.
• The law also in­clu­des the contri­bu­tion rate for long-term care in­surance in the wage tax de­duc­tion pro­ce­dure and
• post­po­nes the date for the first ap­pli­ca­tion of elec­tro­nic data ex­change bet­ween com­pa­nies and pri­vate health in­su­rers for the pur­pose of wage tax de­duc­tion.

Note: The amend­ment to the Real Es­tate Trans­fer Tax Act (GrEStG) cla­ri­fies, among other things, the ques­tion of the con­ti­nued ap­pli­ca­tion of the be­ne­fits un­der Sec­tions 5 to 7 GrEStG. These can con­ti­nue to be ap­plied to pro­perty trans­fers from or to a part­nership with le­gal ca­pa­city un­til 2026. A bre­ach of exis­ting re­ten­tion pe­riods is also ru­led out for the time being.