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GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – http://www.grprainer.com/en conclude: The business weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported that, according to estimates by the Institute for Small and Medium Sized Business Research (Instituts für Mittelstandsforschung), around 135,000 companies will be searching for a successor by the year 2018. It further states that in approximately 54 per cent of cases the successor comes from within the family. The company is then frequently bequeathed or gifted, and this entails enormous tax concessions. Between 85 and 100 per cent of the assets remain tax-free.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – www.grprainer.com/en conclude: Tax evasion is a criminal offense, but German tax law allows one to make a voluntary declaration of an incomplete tax return leading to immunity from punishment. If all tax omissions from the past five years are presented to the tax office accompanied by the necessary documents, the tax evader returns to being tax compliant.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – http://www.grprainer.com/en conclude: Anyone who comes into an inheritance must also expect to pay inheritance tax. While the Growth Relief Act (Wachstums-Entlastungsgesetz) provided relief to heirs by converting the tax rates from 30 and 50 per cent to 15 up to a maximum of 43 per cent, a substantial proportion of the inheritance nevertheless ends up in the state’s coffers. This not only applies if money is bequeathed but also, for example, in the case of real estate or works of art.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – www.grprainer.com/en conclude: One current example from the wide field of labour law is the subject of the minimum wage. Which rules employers must observe in this context, when the minimum wage must be implemented or permissible exceptions are aspects that have to be taken into account when drawing up the employment contract. Remuneration is essentially only one of the points which need to be regulated in the employment contract. This concerns not only the basic salary, but also additional performance-related or fixed bonuses.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – http://www.grprainer.com/en conclude: As reported by Focus Online, data from the Ministry of Finance for North Rhine-Westphalia shows that in this year already almost 4600 citizens have submitted a voluntary declaration in NRW. In June alone, this amounted to more than 500.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – http://www.grprainer.com/en conclude: Executive employees, management personnel or managing directors occupy a central and special role within companies. They form, as it were, the interface between the workforce and the employer. They must take decisions, have special competences and yet are themselves often employees. The same rules of labour law do not, however, apply to them as they do to “normal” employees. The legislature has accounted for the special status of management personnel in companies by means of special regulations.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – www.grprainer.com/en conclude: With a testament, the testator arranges for the disposal of his assets after his death. He can specify, inter alia, arrangements for succession, the size of the inheritance, conditions or even disinheritance in the testament. In addition, he can also determine that the testament be executed by an executor. Thus, the testator has the opportunity to organise his estate in a way that is different to what is foreseen by the statutory rules on intestate succession, which would be applicable in the absence of a testament.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – www.grprainer.com/en conclude: Almost every citizen is confronted with banking law on a daily basis – even if only via their checking account. However, the balance of power between bank and client is extremely disparate: On the one side are the experts of the bank and on the other the client as a layman. This imbalance can work to the disadvantage of the client. A current example of this is the series of judgments of the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) from May 13, 2014 concerning the inadmissibility of prefabricated clauses regarding processing fees in consumer credit agreements (Az. XI ZR 405/12 und XI ZR 170/13).

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London – www.grprainer.com/en conclude: In the context of a company takeover or the purchase of company shares, a detailed examination of the existing risks in connection with the transaction is absolutely necessary so that a careful review of the investment can take place, as the buyer is often insufficiently aware of the company’s true position. A careful examination of all the information relevant for the transaction is provided by the due diligence review. It paints a concrete picture of the existing risks and leads to the determination of a reasonable purchase price that takes into account all of the factors relevant for the transaction.

GRP Rainer Lawyers and Tax Advisors in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart – www.grprainer.com/en conclude: “Kanzleien in Deutschland” is a renowned encyclopaedia of lawyers that is released by the publishing group Nomos. The editors eschew doubtful rankings, portraying only the leading German commercial law firms. Apart from the fields of law covered, criteria such as the history and development of the law firm, publications, legal articles and teaching activities as well as the partnership as an employer also play an important role here.