Further criticism of the fund location law

Tom Schmidtgen Tom Schmidtgen | 22.04.2021

The tax-free allowance for employee shareholdings will indeed be increased to 1,440 euros per year. Industry representatives continue to criticize the law.

The government factions have once again pushed through improvements for start-ups in the negotiations on the Fund Location Act in the Bundestag. On Wednesday, the amendments were passed with a majority in the Finance Committee, as the coalition partners announced. This means that nothing stands in the way of approval in the plenum.

The changes include, among other things, the doubling of the tax-free allowance for employee shareholdings, which was originally thought by the government to be 720 euros. Now start-ups are to benefit from an allowance of 1,440 euros. "In future, employees of start-ups will no longer have to pay tax on transferred shareholdings in these companies in the year of transfer," explains Antje Tillmann (CDU), member of the Bundestag's Finance Committee and financial policy spokeswoman for her parliamentary group. "Taxation will only take place at the time of the sale, at the latest after twelve years." Unlike planned in the government draft, companies up to twelve years old can now benefit from the regulation.

"If the employer takes over the wage tax on the post-taxable value of the employee participation, there are no further tax payments for the employee when leaving the company," says Wiebke Esdar (SPD), also a full member of the Finance Committee. "This possibility is facilitated by the fact that the monetary advantage from the assumption of wage tax by the employer in these cases will now remain tax-free for the employee." On Thursday, the fund location law will be voted on in the Bundestag.

Christian Miele of the German Startups Association calls the current decision, like the plan of the federal government from January,

a "Rohrkrepierer". Although the law will produce improvements, "but in practice, the new law will hardly be applied." "If we want to make Germany fit for the future, we need to pay more attention to the needs of startups. The issue of employee share ownership is crucial here. We urgently need a separate share class for employees in GmbH law and internationally competitive taxation for share options as well."

The FDP and Bündnis90/Die Grüne had tabled amendments, but they were rejected by the Finance Committee. Danyal Bayaz of the Greens writes about it on Twitter: "Opportunity missed".


Like it? Please spread the word:

Newsletter

Startups, stories and stats from the German startup ecosystem straight to your inbox. Subscribe with 2 clicks. Noice.

LinkedIn Connect

Take care, give care

Did this news inform or entertain you? Then we would be happy if you tell your network about it.

Share on Linkedin Share on Facebook Share on Xing

FYI: English edition available

Hello my friend, have you been stranded on the German edition of Startbase? At least your browser tells us, that you do not speak German - so maybe you would like to switch to the English edition instead?

Go to English edition

FYI: Deutsche Edition verfügbar

Hallo mein Freund, du befindest dich auf der Englischen Edition der Startbase und laut deinem Browser sprichst du eigentlich auch Deutsch. Magst du die Sprache wechseln?

Deutsche Edition öffnen

Similar posts