Updates
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This article was written by
Certified Tax Advisor, Lawyer, Director, National Office Tax & Legal
Certified Tax Advisor, Manager, National Office Tax & Legal
Senior Consultant, National Office Tax & Legal
On May 21, 2026, the Federal Government reintroduced the draft of the “Ninth Act Amending Provisions of Tax Consulting Act and Tax Law” into the legislative process. This was necessary because the Federal Council had not approved the previous draft bill due to the so-called relief measure for employees it contained. In addition to amendments to the Tax Consulting Act, which governs professional practice, changes are planned in particular to the Trade Tax Act and the Real Estate Transfer Tax Act.
The scope of advice that income tax assistance associations are authorized to provide is to be expanded by removing the previous income thresholds (EUR 18,000 for single-person assessments; EUR 36,000 for joint assessments) for the activities in question. Furthermore, the advisory powers of income tax assistance associations are to be extended to include unemployed persons, whereas previously they were only permitted to advise existing association members if these became unemployed in the meantime.
Limited assistance in tax matters provided as an ancillary service to another activity, such as that provided by banks or energy consultants to their clients, is to be regulated by a consolidated, abstract general rule (Section 4e StBerG-E) and no longer by an exhaustive list.
The rules for free assistance in tax matters are to be restructured and, as a general rule, made permissible (Section 6 StBerG-E). This removes the previous restriction on the rule of such assistance to relatives. However, the rule of free assistance outside the context of family, neighbourly or other personal relationships must take place under the supervision of a qualified professional. The amendment is also intended to facilitate the establishment of so-called tax law clinics at universities, where students can provide free assistance in tax matters under qualified supervision.
The minimum trade tax rate is to be raised from the current 200 % to 280 % from the 2027 tax year onwards. This is intended to counteract, to an even greater extent than before, purely tax-motivated relocations by companies taking advantage of municipalities with low tax rates.
When acquiring at least 90 % of the shares in property-owning companies, the same transaction may currently be subject to double taxation if the contractual transaction (known as ”signing”) and the real-property transaction (known as ”closing”) take place at different times and the transactions are not reported in full and within the prescribed time limit.
With a new paragraph 3b in Section 1 GrEStG, the principle of the order of taxation – priority taxation of the contractual transaction, secondary taxation of the real property transaction – is extended to transfers of shares in property-owning companies. Consequently, in future, only one notification at the time of signing will generally be required. The transaction can then generally be taxed conclusively at this point in time. The currently existing and highly complex procedural provisions of Section 16 (4a) and (5) sentence 2 GrEStG (see BDO Insight) will then become superfluous and are to be repealed. The stay of execution decision of the German Federal Fiscal Court of July 9, 2025, case no. II B 13/25, (see BDO Insight) is likely to have contributed to this legislative amendment, even though the explanatory memorandum does not expressly refer to it.
The notification periods for parties involved in domestic transactions, which currently stand at two weeks, are to be extended to one month (Section 19 GrEStG). This would, amongst other things, bring the length of the notification periods into line with those applicable in cases where the taxpayer has no domestic connection.
The aforementioned legislative amendments are to apply to legal transactions concluded after the date of promulgation of the act.
The time limit applicable until December 31, 2026 regarding the provision in Section 24 GrEStG is repealed (deletion of Articles 30 and 36 (5) of the Secondary Credit Market Promotion Act. The background to this provision is that, with the Act on the Modernization of Partnership Law (MoPeG), which came into force on January 1, 2024, the provisions on joint ownership of assets were largely repealed. As with corporations, there has since been a strict separation of the asset spheres between the partnership and the partners. In particular, the tax relief provided for in Section 5 (1) and (2) GrEStG, Section 6 (3), first sentence GrEStG, and Section 7 (2) GrEStG, which are aimed at the joint ownership, would be rendered ineffective if Section 24 GrEStG were not to apply. Accordingly, for the purposes of real estate transfer tax, partnerships continue to be treated as joint ownership and their assets as joint assets; this is to be ensured by the extension of Section 24 GrEStG beyond December 31, 2026. It remains to be seen to what extent the long-contemplated fundamental reform of the real estate transfer tax will be implemented.