When businesses or parts of businesses are transferred, there is regularly an “automatic” transfer of existing employment relationships to the acquirer. The transfer of employment relationships on the occasion of a transfer of business is of great practical relevance and repeatedly the subject of court decisions. In individual cases, difficult questions may arise regarding the allocation of existing employment relationships. The European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has now ruled that the proportional transfer of an employment relationship to several acquirers is also possible in principle.

To cope with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the legislator has now launched the Second Corona Tax Assistance Act (Steuerhilfegesetz). In the following, the measures of the Corona Tax Assistance Acts that will support taxpayers’ liquidity and innovations in the field of corporate taxation (restructuring and international tax law) are explained.

With the law to mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in civil, insolvency and criminal procedure law of 27 March 2020, the legislator reacted to the corona crisis and temporarily suspended or modified a number of substantial regulations in insolvency and company law.
The regulations for company law enacted as Art. 2 under the bulky title “Act on Measures in Corporate, Cooperative, Association, Foundation, and Home Ownership Law to Combat the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic” (“COVID-19 Act”) are aimed in particular at keeping companies with a larger circle of shareholders capable of acting irrespective of existing restrictions on the possibilities of assembly. Section 1 of the COVID-19 Act therefore provides for substantial simplifications for the holding of general meetings in stock corporations (AG), partnerships limited by shares (KGaA) and European companies (SE).

In a recent decision, the Federal Court of Finance (BFH) specifies the criteria according to which, after the sale of a freelance practice, the resumption of the freelance activity within the previous local sphere of activity is not detrimental to the tax privileges of the capital gains realized on the sale.