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.

There has been a lengthy discussion whether investments in infrastructure should be treated as a separate asset class under Solvency II. This discussion seems to have now come to an end. On 30 September 2015, the European Commission adopted a draft amendment to the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/35. Said amendment will result in lower capital charges for qualified infrastructure investments.