After the Federal Ministry of Finance already discussed a first partial draft with the associations in December 2019, last week a new partial draft for the long-awaited amendment to the Circular on the German Investment Tax Act of May 21, 2019, was sent for consultation to the associations. The amendment is intended in particular to clarify questions in connection with the regulations for special investment funds (Chapter 3). We highlight some particularly important aspects of the new draft in our beinformed.

In spring, many companies, including investment companies, are planning their ordinary shareholders' meeting. The safety measures taken in order to avoid a spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially restrictions on gatherings of people, partly have significant effects on the ability of companies of various legal forms to act. Companies are now often no longer able to make decisions at relevant meetings in the usual way. On the one hand, this applies to ordinary meetings, which usually take place annually and are often used to approve the annual financial statements and to determine the distribution of profits, and, on the other hand, to extraordinary meetings that are necessary due to special measures, in particular for corporate actions and restructuring. Companies that, according to their constituting documents, do not have the possibility to hold their shareholders' meetings by written proceedings, audio conference or video conference, must now face the problem of holding the upcoming shareholders' meetings despite social distancing or lockdowns.

On December 10, 2019, the German Ministry of Finance published a first draft of a reform of its controlled foreign corporation (CFC) taxation. Even though Germany had already implemented CFC taxation in 1972, a reform was necessary because the existing legislation is not in line with the requirements of the Anti-Tax-Avoidance Directive (ATAD) of the European Union in every aspect. At first glance, the proposed amendments look rather minor, but after a closer look it becomes evident that the reform has the potential to significantly increase compliance requirements, in particular for German investors in investment funds.