Current Developments in the Taxation of Private Equity / Venture Capital Funds Financial Yearbook 2024

Hope is the last to die at the end. In the introductory statements to our last articles in respect of tax compliance for private equity and venture capital food e.g. in the FYB Financial Yearbook 2020: „Πάντα ῥεῖ – Everything flows!”, “Little is Flowing in the Right Direction!” (FYB Financial Yearbook 2022) or “Breaking out of a Time Loop” (FYB Financial Yearbook 2023) we were still basically hopeful and optimistic about a (return to a) systematic or dogmatically correct taxation of private equity.

However, now that we have taken a closer look at many of the various developments of the past years, and not least because of the article “Operation Luxembourg” recently published in a well-known monthly German business magazine, a certain resignation and frustration has set in. Even our cautiously expressed wish of last year to simply accept the case law of Germany’s highest fiscal court, the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH – Bundesfinanzhof), on the repayment of capital contributions to corporations domiciled in third countries has unfortunately not been acted upon, as feared, but more on that later and first things first.