Formal Tax Compliance for Domestic and Foreign Private Equity Funds

The economic success and attractive return opportunities for private equity investments in conjunction with the extremely low interest rates on the capital markets, which have been close to zero for years, have motivated numerous long-standing private equity investors, as well as newcomers for the first time, to broaden their investment focus and make commitments in domestic and foreign private equity funds.

Interestingly, however, there are still no explicit legal regulations in Germany on the taxation of domestic private equity funds or with regard to the taxation of domestic taxpayers when they invest in foreign private equity funds. The MoRaKG ("Act to Modernize the Framework Conditions for Equity Investments") and the Venture Capital Participation Act ("WKBG") were tentative attempts to create a legal framework, whereby only some parts of the MoRaKG were implemented and significant elements of the WKBG were declared inadmissible by the EU Commission in Brussels under EU state aid aspects and were therefore not allowed to be implemented.

In the coalition agreement for the 2013 - 2017 legislative period, the German government once again mentioned the promotion of venture capital to strengthen Germany as a financial center. However, after this project was again not taken up and addressed in the subsequent period, the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association ("BVK") had developed a legislative proposal on its own initiative and presented a possible venture capital law with significant and fundamental regulations for the venture capital industry in spring 2015.