With the Minimum Tax Act (MinStG), which the Bundestag adopted in November 2023, Germany is transposing the EU Minimum Tax Directive (2022/2523) of 15.12.2022 into national law. The Minimum Tax Act guarantees a worldwide minimum taxation of companies with 15 % and thus mainly affects internationally active companies but based in Germany. Because only if the parent company is located in Germany or has its management in Germany, the MinStG fully applies. All regulations apply from 01.01.2024.
1st Background of the Minimum Tax Act
The background to the Minimum Tax Act is comparatively easy to explain. With it or with the EU directive behind it, legislators want to ensure fairer tax competition, making tax loopholes and tax havens less attractive. As a result, it is to be ensured that EU-based companies, regardless of the chosen design – for example with subsidiaries in the low-tax country – are burdened with at least 15%.
Thus, the regulations of the Minimum Tax Act only affect companies that have so far chosen appropriate arrangements. If the individual parts of a group are already burdened with 15% or higher worldwide, the MinStG only applies to a limited extent. Corresponding effects arise, for example, in income and foreign tax law, because here too the 15% limit is introduced as a new reference.
For a company to be an intermediary company within the meaning of § 8(3) AStG, its foreign tax burden had to be, for example, 25 % or lower. Here, only a tax burden of 15% or less is required. The additional taxation is thus defused, as well as the license barrier (§ 4j EStG).
Structure of the Minimum Tax Law – what do 96 paragraphs regulate?
The minimum tax law in the version adopted by the Bundestag consists of a total of 96 individual regulations, which are divided into 12 parts. Each section regulates not only material but also procedural peculiarities and restrictions. The MinStG takes into account the tax burden applicable abroad as well as domestic legal norms and brings them together in such a way that groups of companies that previously paid 10% tax, for example, will now be exactly 15% tax burden.
The Minimum Tax Act thus links to the existing regulations in income and corporate tax law. The most important thematic sections of the MinStG are:
This article does not replace tax or legal advice in an individual case. Facts, current law, jurisdiction, documentation and implementation remain decisive.