In principle, legacies, claims to compensation for compulsory portions and other general estate liabilities are deductible in full, even if the inheritance consists of tax-privileged business assets.

On July 8, 2015, the German government passed a bill to adapt the Inheritance and Gift Tax Act to the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court.

While the Bundesrat has been dealing with various tax amendment bills, the Federal Ministry of Finance has presented the long-awaited draft amendment to the Inheritance Tax Act.

In response to the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, the tax authorities have been setting inheritance tax only provisionally for all gifts and inheritance cases in full since January 1, 2009.

If the donor also reserves the voting right together with the usufruct, the donation of a company share is not favored as business assets.

The preferential treatment for real estate rented out for residential purposes only exists if the testator already had a concrete intention to rent out the property and started to implement it.

With a new Tax Amendment Act, the German government primarily wants to take into account various requests for changes from the states for which there was no time last year.

The first details of the new regulations on the preferential treatment of business assets for inheritance tax purposes are now known.

In the case of the annual payment of inheritance tax on pensions or other recurring benefits, a waiver of the payments is possible if the person liable for the benefit later becomes insolvent.

If a third party assumes the contributions for a life insurance policy, the contributions are subject to gift tax in the full amount, not only in the amount of the increase in value of the insurance claim.