Anyone who inherited private assets between July and November 2016 must also pay inheritance tax on them in case of doubt. The Federal Finance Court (BFH) has confirmed this in a judgment that has now been published (Az. II R 1/19). A woman who had inherited from her aunt in September 2016 sued. The problem: The Federal Constitutional Court had already obliged the legislature at the end of 2014 to revise parts of the inheritance tax law by the end of June 2016 at the latest. This deadline was missed, the new rules did not come until November – but should then apply retrospectively. The plaintiff saw her rights violated because the retroactive new regulation was unconstitutional.
The BFH now clearly assesses this differently: The Constitutional Court has ruled that the previous law remains applicable until the new regulation. Therefore, the determination of the inheritance tax for the acquired private assets on the basis of the existing provisions was also lawful. In addition, only the taxation in the case of business assets was changed, but not the regulations on the acquisition of private assets as in the case of the plaintiff.