Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the administrative and enforcement relief for 2020 and 2021 will continue to apply in 2022. These essentially include the following measures:
Donate: For all special accounts set up by domestic legal entities under public law, domestic public authorities or officially recognised associations of the voluntary welfare sector, including their member organisations, to promote aid in the Corona crisis, the following applies without any limit on the amount: simplified proof of donationIn these cases, the cash deposit receipt or the booking confirmation (e.g. bank statement) from a credit institution or the PC printout from online banking is sufficient as proof. The simplified proof of donation also applies if donations were made to another account of the named donation recipient before the special account was set up.
If non-tax-exempt fundraisers have set up donation accounts to promote aid during the Corona crisis and have called for donations, these donations are tax-deductible if the donation account is managed as a trust account and the donations are then forwarded either to a tax-exempt corporation, association of persons or assets or to a domestic legal entity under public law or a domestic public authority to promote aid during the Corona crisis. In order to create donation confirmations, the recipient of the donation must also be given a list of the individual donors and their respective share of the donation amount.
Fundraising campaigns by non-profit organizations during the Corona crisis: A non-profit organization is generally not allowed to use funds for tax-privileged purposes that it does not support according to its statutes. If a non-profit organization that does not pursue charitable purposes according to its statutes (e.g. a sports club, music club, allotment association or traditional association) calls for donations during the Corona crisis, it is harmless for the tax exemption of a corporation which, according to its statutes, does not promote charitable purposes or is regionally bound, if it uses funds received as part of a special campaign for help in the Corona crisis for the stated purpose without changing its statutes accordingly. When promoting charitable purposes, the corporation must itself check and document the need of the person or institution being supported. In the case of measures such as shopping assistance for people in domestic quarantine or for people who belong to the particularly vulnerable group of people due to their age, previous illnesses, etc., physical need for assistance must be assumed.
Increase in short-time working allowance and continuation of payment of trainer and volunteer allowance: If tax-privileged organisations top up the short-time working allowance for their own employees who are on short-time work from their own funds up to a total of 80% of the previous salary, neither the use of funds for statutory purposes nor the market practice and appropriateness of the top-up are examined. The prerequisite is that the top-up is made uniformly for all employees. In addition, it is not objected to under non-profit law if the Voluntary or trainer allowances continue to be performed, although the activity is no longer possible (at least temporarily) due to the Corona crisis.
Gift tax: If the donations are gifts, tax exemptions can be granted in accordance with Section 13 of the Inheritance Tax Act. This includes donations to non-profit organizations in accordance with Section 13 Paragraph 1 No. 16 of the Inheritance Tax Act and donations that are exclusively dedicated to church, non-profit or charitable purposes, provided that their use for this purpose is guaranteed.
Donations to business partners: If the taxpayer provides services from his business assets to his business partners who have been directly and significantly negatively affected by the Corona crisis free of charge to an appropriate extent for the purpose of maintaining business relations, the expenses are fully deductible as business expenses. Section 4 Paragraph 5 Sentence 1 No. 1 EStG does not apply in this respect for reasons of equity.
Source: BMF letter | Publication | IV C 4 – S 2223/19/10003 :006 | 14-12-2021
