Auswirkungen der Investmentsteuerreform betreffend Vereinbarkeit mit EU-Recht, Verhinderung von Steuersparmodellen und Steuervereinfachung

The InvStG 2018 addressed the various concerns raised from an EU law perspective prior to the reform. The reform of investment tax law can therefore be considered a success in this respect.
Explicit disadvantages for cross-border situations existing prior to the reform have been almost completely eliminated with the InvStG 2018. Nevertheless, following the mission to critically examine the law from both a primary law and secondary law perspective, this report highlights points with regard to which a certain need for adjustment can be stated. These are all questions of detail, which are expected to concern only a small number of cases. There are no concerns for the large majority of regulations and cases. The tax saving models addressed by the investment tax reform, in particular the models of "Kopplungsgeschäfte", "Zins- & Dividendensurrogate", "Ertragsausgleich Enhancements" and with the Luxembourg SPF, are in principle effectively eliminated by the conceptual countermeasures in the InvStG 2018. Within the scope of the study, only selective tax avoidance options remained in the context of these models. At the same time, the new conception of investment taxation opened up new scope for tax structuring, particularly in the different partial exemption rates and the option-opening documentary requirements for the partial exemption rates, limited tax liability, real estate income and for tax-privileged investors. New tax structuring opportunities could also arise with cryptocurrencies and tokens. In order to avoid individual tax arrangements, the legislator could take up the regulatory proposals outlined in this report. For investment funds, which are particularly important in the mass case law of investment fund taxation, the InvStG 2018 has achieved its goal of legal and administrative simplification and thus a reduction of the compliance burden. These simplification effects have been relativised by the different partial exemption rates and the retroactive exemptions for tax- privileged investors.