Remuneration for license plate advertising is wages

An advertising rental agreement with employees for the attachment of printed license plate holders without independent economic content leads to wages.

Remuneration paid by the employer to its employees for the installation of a license plate holder with advertising is caused by the employment relationship and is therefore wages if the advertising rental agreement concluded with the employee has no independent economic content. With this reasoning, the Federal Fiscal Court confirmed a ruling by the Münster Fiscal Court and determined that a predominantly business-related reason for the payment is regularly ruled out if the remuneration paid for the advertising is to be assessed as wages.

However, the Federal Fiscal Court has also expressly acknowledged that, under the right circumstances, a corresponding remuneration would not be wages. The decisive factor is the structure of the contractual relationship. In the case in dispute, there was no specific contractual arrangement in the advertising rental agreement with the employees that would have ensured the promotion of the advertising effect, for example by prohibiting advertising for other companies. In addition, the rental agreements were linked to the existence of an employment relationship with the employer, were only concluded with employees of the company and the remuneration was obviously aimed at exploiting the tax-free limit for other income from the rental of movable property.