The so-called “Immediate Investment Program” has already been implemented, and with the DAC8 Implementation Act concerning reporting obligations for cryptoassets, the new federal government has launched another tax initiative. At the EU level, the ATAD3 Directive (Unshell) and the Transfer Pricing Directive shall not be further pursued for the time being due to a lack of support.
As already laid down in the coalition agreement between the Conservative Parties (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), a tax bill for an Immediate Investment Program has been introduced shortly after the formation of the government. This has already been passed by the Federal Parliament and the Federal Council and contains the following key measures:
On July 4, 2025, the Federal Ministry of Finance presented a revised draft bill for a law implementing Directive (EU) 2023/2226 (DAC8) and released it for consultation with associations. The deadline for comments ended on July 14, 2025.
The DAC8 Directive of October 17, 2023 ((EU) 2023/2226) provides for the introduction of new reporting requirements in connection with transactions involving cryptoassets.
These will be implemented primarily through the newly introduced Crypto Asset Tax Transparency Act (KStTG), which contains provisions on due diligence and reporting obligations for providers of crypto services and on the automatic exchange of reported information (Art. 1). In addition, further DAC8 regulations relating to existing instruments of administrative assistance will be implemented by amending the EU Administrative Assistance Act (Art. 2), the Financial Account Information Exchange Act (Art. 3), the Tax Code (Art. 4; including, among other things, an amendment to Section 138f of the Tax Code with regard to the information contained in the data set) and the Platform Tax Transparency Act (Article 5). In addition, the Financial Administration Act (Article 6) is being amended to take account of the expansion of the tasks of the Federal Central Tax Office as a result of the KStTG.
In accordance with the requirement that the DAC8 Directive be transposed into national law by December 31, 2025, the legislative amendments are scheduled to enter into force on January 1, 2026.
In June, the Council of the EU (ECOFIN – Economy and Finance) agreed not to further pursue the Unshell directive proposal (ATAD3) on the abusive use of letterbox companies.
In its semi-annual report on tax issues, ECOFIN justified this decision by stating that the resulting administrative burden would be too high, that there were overlaps between the ATAD3 drafts and DAC6, and that multiple reporting obligations could not be ruled out. Overall, the Council now believes that the objectives of the Unshell proposal can also be achieved by clarifying or amending the DAC6 hallmarks. However, the report does not specify any concrete proposals for amendments. It remains to be seen whether, when, and how the Commission will take up the Council's position.
In addition, the Council decided not to pursue the draft transfer pricing directive presented in September 2023 due to a lack of support from member states. Instead, the introduction of a transfer pricing platform to be set up by the Commission will be examined.
______________