are granted subsidies from state funds or funds from the European Social Fund at the commencement of self-employed, they are taxable in principle (FG Saxony, Order of 16.03.2009 - 8 V \u200b\u200b179/07).
The applicant, a lawyer and tax consultant firm, was founded by two lawyers by acquisition of another firm. For this purpose, the lawyers were Start-up grants from the Free State of Saxony, partly funded by the European Social Fund and partly from state funds. These benefits were from the tax office each as special operating income of lawyers in the context of separate and uniform determination of tax base (profit of the firm) assess. The applicant requested the suspension of implementation of the notice of assessment, and they include the assessment of the founders of aid as a special operating income topped illegal.
The Tax Court (SC) of Saxony has rejected the claim as unfounded.
include operating income means all income generating receipts generated by the Operations are initiated. A receipt is then operationally caused when a material relationship with the company. This is given in the opinion of the Court in this case, since the subsidies were granted to facilitate the lawyers start to independence through establishing their own firm. Therefore, the funds of the European Social Fund and grants from state funds would provide operating revenue from self-employment.
According to the judges are the grants as special operating revenue the two lawyers in the separate and uniform determination of tax bases (here: gain the firm to be considered). The text of the relevant provision in the Income Tax Act (ITA) under which those grants would represent actually taking any special operation, be taken too short. namely, would be expected on the special operating revenue also payments from third parties , according to the intent of the provision when the partnership (here: law firm) had caused. That was the case here.
The grants are in the opinion of the Court also not exempt under § 3 No. 2 Income Tax Act. Tax-free under this provision include unemployment benefits, short-time allowance, unemployment assistance, transitional allowance, etc. The start-up grants could not be included under this provision. Since the scheme is a tax exemption on exemption, and thus interpreted narrowly, it could be to the relevant grants also not appropriately applied .
