Thanks for the clarifications, since I don't think this is widely known (outside of entrepreneurial circles). That makes a lot of sense then.
So, as a "regular bloke" you can leave Germany for better pastures, no problem. But if you are "independently wealthy-ish", they really want to keep you there, to pay more taxes / employ people that pay taxes. Or take the money anyway, make sure they get their "capital gains taxes" so to speak?
25% capital gains tax is actually not that bad other than that Germany has no equivalent of an RRSP and TFSA. Capital gains are taxed as regular income in Canada for example. Your marginal tax rate is quite probably gonna be greater than 25%. To be fair, you only get taxed on half of the gains in many cases. Quoting https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/capital-gains-tax-c...:
As of June 25, 2024, however, you will be taxed on 50% of your annual capital gains up to $250,000. For any capital gains over $250,000, that ratio increases to two-thirds, or approximately 66.67%. Here’s how that would look in real life: Suppose one year you sell stocks for $300,000 more than you paid for them. 50% of the first $250,000 of those gains ($125,000) would be taxed as income. 66.67% of the remaining $50,000 ($33,335) would be taxed as well. So on the $300,000 gain, only $158,335 counts toward your taxable income.
For corporations and trusts, there’s no such threshold: regardless of the total capital gains, 66.67% are taxable
Like, if I was to sell my investments and move to Germany from Canada :) and let's say I had your 5 year example worth of 100k profit i.e. capital gains, to dispose of, even if you made zero other money that year for example would mean you pay $113,685 of taxes that year (in Ontario, just to make an example). That's an average tax rate of ~22.75%, marginal rate of ~53.5%.
Like it does sound like Canadian departure tax basically. And it's not just about companies as the example above shows. That was just me owning stocks. Any Canadian leaving has to pay departure tax. Basically, when you leave Canada you have to pay tax on any of your investments. A "deemed disposition". Pay taxes as if you had sold, even if you keep ownership. Which if you think about it, makes some sense. For all the country knows, you've accumulated wealth without ever paying capital gains tax, because you never sold and now you leave the country (potentially never to come back but who knows?!), and sell shortly after leaving. Leaving to a country with no capital gains taxes. A year later you come back and retire in Canada like you always planned. Deemed disposition prevents that. Makes sense actually. If you do stay in the other country afterwards, that's none of Canada's business any longer.
The good thing here is that we do have the RRSP and TFSA. So hopefully before leaving Canada I would've paid myself dividends over the years, in a tax efficient way and put those into a TFSA to grow tax free and I won't have to pay departure tax on that (or anything in an RRSP). And an RRSP would AFAIK even be tax sheltered as a "retirement account" under Canada - Germany tax treaties.
(fun thought experiment to move from each of these countries to the other :) )
> Pay taxes as if you had sold, even if you keep ownership. Which if you think about it, makes some sense.
It does make some sense, yea. The draconic thing is taxing you on a fictitious sale. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was delayed until you actually sell the shares. There are actually ways to delay it, but they require a collateral.
For example if you can reasonably prove that it is a temporary absence up to 7 years when moving outside the EU, you don't have to pay the exit tax, but need to have collateral.
If you move inside the EU, the exit tax actually clashes with the EU's free movement directive and I think there are pending court cases for this up to high levels.
So if you move within the EU, you can delay indefinitely without interest, but they will still require a collateral. And if you want to leave Germany, you'll usually also want to leave the EU for the same reasons...
Switzerland is an option because due to various bilateral agreements, it is treated similarly as other EU countries.
Its funny that you mention this Canadian departure tax on stock holdings. Because just a few weeks ago the German government actually enhanced the exit tax and it now also applies if you own more than 1% OR 500k€ in a _single_ investment fund.
Supposedly this is to close loopholes around creating family-owned investment funds to get around the exit tax.
But as we all know, once a new tax is there, it will never go away. Easy enough to lower the limit or apply it to all holdings in the future.
Not just stock holdings. Any investments. Except for your primary residence, if you sell it before leaving. So e.g. you're not safe just because you didn't own stock and instead created a real estate investment empire :) If you keep your primary residence and rent it out for example (presumably because you do want to come back and retire in Canada?), then capital gains will accrue from the date you leave Canada.
Fictitious sale = deemed disposition. Same thing. If you can't pay the tax from cash you have lying around you will have to actually sell some of the investments.
Now I do get that selling a business might not be as easy as selling (part of) a liquid stock. But take the real estate example again. Selling your real estate empire seems much harder than selling some of your NVDA shares to pay the tax. If you aren't prepared to sell your business though and you want to hold onto it, why would the government be inclined to believe that you really want to leave and never come back so to speak?
> If you aren't prepared to sell your business though and you want to hold onto it, why would the government be inclined to believe that you really want to leave and never come back so to speak?
No idea. And for a corporation (GmbH) in Germany, it would actually be trivial to track and control this, since the ownership transfer is only possible through a notary public and only becomes legal fact after its published in the public company register. So put a flag on it, and when that transfer shows up, just block it until the exit tax from when you left is paid.
I'm not sure we understood the same thing there, given you said "no idea".
My point is that it's very understandable that the government doesn't just trust that you'll pay your departure tax at some future later point, once you've been able to sell your business, in say like 5 years from now, or maybe 7 or like never ;)
I'm not trying to argue that everything is rosy. Just trying to see both sides so to speak. In a non-ideal world. Where not everyone is like you, who'd actually pay his taxes as soon as they were able to sell but they just really really want to leave like now.
Oh, yea I misread that a bit and my "no idea" doesn't really fit there.
I agree with your point that the government generally doesn't trust me to pay at some point in the future. Blocking the ownership transfer for a corporation like I mentioned above would be one way to ensure it though.
So, as a "regular bloke" you can leave Germany for better pastures, no problem. But if you are "independently wealthy-ish", they really want to keep you there, to pay more taxes / employ people that pay taxes. Or take the money anyway, make sure they get their "capital gains taxes" so to speak?
25% capital gains tax is actually not that bad other than that Germany has no equivalent of an RRSP and TFSA. Capital gains are taxed as regular income in Canada for example. Your marginal tax rate is quite probably gonna be greater than 25%. To be fair, you only get taxed on half of the gains in many cases. Quoting https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/capital-gains-tax-c...:
Like, if I was to sell my investments and move to Germany from Canada :) and let's say I had your 5 year example worth of 100k profit i.e. capital gains, to dispose of, even if you made zero other money that year for example would mean you pay $113,685 of taxes that year (in Ontario, just to make an example). That's an average tax rate of ~22.75%, marginal rate of ~53.5%.Like it does sound like Canadian departure tax basically. And it's not just about companies as the example above shows. That was just me owning stocks. Any Canadian leaving has to pay departure tax. Basically, when you leave Canada you have to pay tax on any of your investments. A "deemed disposition". Pay taxes as if you had sold, even if you keep ownership. Which if you think about it, makes some sense. For all the country knows, you've accumulated wealth without ever paying capital gains tax, because you never sold and now you leave the country (potentially never to come back but who knows?!), and sell shortly after leaving. Leaving to a country with no capital gains taxes. A year later you come back and retire in Canada like you always planned. Deemed disposition prevents that. Makes sense actually. If you do stay in the other country afterwards, that's none of Canada's business any longer.
The good thing here is that we do have the RRSP and TFSA. So hopefully before leaving Canada I would've paid myself dividends over the years, in a tax efficient way and put those into a TFSA to grow tax free and I won't have to pay departure tax on that (or anything in an RRSP). And an RRSP would AFAIK even be tax sheltered as a "retirement account" under Canada - Germany tax treaties.
(fun thought experiment to move from each of these countries to the other :) )