Taxation of Group Enterprises
Taxation of group enterprises covers the narrative cycle of entrepreneurship. From starting a one-man business to its growth into an incorporation, the necessity of developing a structure with multiple incorporations, to the cross-border expansion of economic activities, followed by emigration and the sale of interests in diverse businesses - all these business events know distinct fiscal aspects, all of which the entrepreneur will face at some point during his/her business endeavors. Next to the consideration of corporate fiscal consequences and possibilities, the person of the entrepreneur and his/her personal interests - ranging from the attribution and placement of capital at his/her spouse’s disposal, to the fiscal-judicial treatment of personally owned real-estate, up to the transnational civil rights which are promulgated through European negative integration – will affect his/her fiscal-economic position. Therefore, it is essential to also take personal circumstances into account when mapping one’s fiscal-economic options. After all, even behind the largest multinational’s curtains of commerce, one finds people of flesh and blood who have seen each other through the massive build.
“A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.”
Don Marquis (29/07/1878 – 29/12/1937), American poet
Van Clamsfield International Ltd. provides advice and practical guidelines in all stages of entrepreneurship, including:
- Answers for the starting entrepreneur, fiscal facets of the business case in question, application for financing through the preparation of a viable business plan and the appropriate legal form;
- Considerations for the married entrepreneur concerning profit allocation and the attribution of capital between spouses, the importance of the build-up of fiscal reserves;
- Examination of different possible income alternatives for the entrepreneur who engages in conversion of his/her company into an incorporated enterprise; detailed fiscal enlightenment on a rustled versus a silent conversion;
- Analysis of remuneration, dividends and effective tax burden for the expanding entrepreneur; fiscal-judicial aspects of the informal versus the formal deposit of capital, the build of a concern, the cost price of a participation, tax exemption opportunities and deductable depreciation losses of a participation;
- Solutions to inherent difficulties of the expanding entrepreneur: financing opportunities, holding structure, the formation of a fiscal unity, corporate real-estate, the enterprise and directors’ liability, the enterprise and substantial participation, the enterprise and financing costs;
- Directing established entrepreneurs to the use of various control mechanisms and subsequent fiscal facets: safeguarding against disguised distribution of profits, possibilities of indirect and direct distribution of profits, tax exemption opportunities of participations, utilizable niche at transition of atmosphere;
- Investigation of international & European fiscal options for the international operating entrepreneur: permissible tax jurisdictions, place of business and legally required fictitious domicile, permanent establishment vs. subsidiary, prevention of double taxation, assessment of liability to taxation, assessment whether international and European requirements of non-discrimination have been met;
- Detailed determination of value for the entrepreneur who transfers his business to another firm: appraisal of stock, valuation of silent reserves, economic stipulations and fiscal ramifications of a contract of sale, detailed estimation of an assets and liabilities transaction, fiscal-judicial aspects for selling and buying enterprises as well as stock mergers, valuation at the realization of profit reserves, optimal determination of value with respect to the height of the taxation burden and fiscal-judicial possibilities of fiscal emigration;
- Fiscal-economic methods to prevent revaluation and the realization of walkout profits;
- Fiscal opportunities in case of corporate succession;
- Insight into the fiscal requirements concerning the exemption of corporate tax for charitable organizations.