The Agency Permanent Establishment in Germany

Rudiger, 39, lives and works in Hamburg and has over 18 year’s practical experience as

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PREFACE  4

  I EINFÜHRUNG  5

  I INTRODUCTION  5

  II LEITSÄTZE  6

  II SUMMARY OF JUDGEMENT  6

  III TATBESTAND  6

  III FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES  6

  IV ENTSCHEIDUNGSGRÜNDE  8

  IV OPINION AND REASONING  8

  V ABSCHLIEßENDER KOMMENTAR  13

  V FINAL COMMENTS  13

  Important Notice: Laws regulations administrative instructions tax treaties and court  

  decisions could deviate from each other and are subject to permanent changes The  

  judgement of a case depends on individual facts and circumstances so that it is strongly  

  recommended to contact a tax advisor before making a decision that affects one s tax  

  situation  

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Preface

Being into the international tax business for a couple of years, I always found it extremely difficult to deal with cross border cases without having an opinion of the tax consequences in other foreign jurisdictions.

Often it was not just to know the foreign tax law – sometimes difficult enough to understand – but to find tax information into the right language and the right format.

The intention of this script is to provide the international tax expert community respectively (tax) managers dealing with international PE cases with a first familiarization of the German agency PE concept. For this purpose the Bundesfinanzhof decision of 3 August 2005 – regarding a disputed agency PE under the Germany/Portugal double tax convention in the construction industryshall serve as an example and is thus translated and shortly commented in this sense.

You are invited for comments under: croesurbahns@aol.com

Hamburg/Germany, January 2009

Rudiger Urbahns

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