On 11 November 2015, the Joint Committee of the European Supervisory Authorities EBA, EIOPA and ESMA presented drafts of several technical standards. The Joint Committe presented the draft regulatory technical standards relating to key information documents for packaged retail and insurance-based investment products (PRIIPs) for the purpose of public consultation. The drafts of the implementing technical standards with regard to the allocation of credit assessments of external credit rating agencies to the scale of credit quality steps under CRD IV and Solvency II are final. They were submitted to the European Commission for approval.
On November 12th, 2015, the German Federal Tax Authority published an amendment of the VAT Application Decree. The Decree now adopts the same wording set forth in the VAT Code for the tax exemption of the management of investment funds, § 4 No. 8 (h) VAT Code. In addition, the amendment clarifies that the tax exemption also applies to the performance of risk management. In our view, the VAT Decree violates EU Law.
On 16 October 2015, the Bundesrat (German Federal Council) approved the 2015 Tax Amendment Act (Steueränderungsgesetz 2015), which includes the amendments previously proposed and approved by the Bundestag (German Parliament). This new Act amends, inter alia, the German Real Estate Transfer Tax Act and is based mainly on the German federal states' initiatives, which were not implemented as part of the tax amending acts in 2014. The following Newsletter will analyze these amendments to the German Real Estate Transfer Tax Act, which include an adjustment in computational basis for the substitute assessment basis (Ersatzbemessungsgrundlage) for the purpose of the real estate transfer tax as well as the clarification of when the transfer of an indirect interest holder in a real estate holding partnership would result in a taxable event.
