Ein Teil der GVL Vergütungen, die Ausschüttungen aus der Vergütung für Rechteüberlassung, sind grundsätzlich mit 7% umsatzsteuerpflichtig. Daher sind wir aus rechtlichen Gründen verpflichtet die Umsatzsteuerpflicht unserer Berechtigten nachzuweisen und zu prüfen.
Bitte beachten Sie, dass wir bis zur abschließenden Klärung Ihrer Umsatzsteuerpflicht keine Auszahlungen von offenen Vergütungen an Sie vornehmen können.
GVL remunerations are generally subject to income tax and must therefore be declared in your tax return. Please note that GVL is not authorised to provide tax advice. If you have any specific questions regarding the tax treatment of your remunerations, please contact your tax adviser or your local tax office.
Gemäß § 50 des deutschen Einkommensteuergesetzes muss die GVL von allen an im Ausland lebende Künstler auszuzahlenden Beträgen einen ermäßigten Steuersatz von 15 % zuzüglich 5,5 % Solidaritätszuschlag einbehalten. Wenn Sie diesen Steuerabzug vermeiden möchten, bitten wir Sie, uns die vom Bundeszentralamt für Steuern ausgestellte Freistellungsbescheinigung zuzusenden.
Individuals who have neither a domicile nor their habitual residence in Germany are subject to limited tax liability in respect of their domestic income within the meaning of Section 49 of the Income Tax Act.
Persons who are resident in the Federal Republic of Germany or have their habitual residence there are subject to unlimited tax liability under section 1 of the Income Tax Act.
GVL is obliged to deduct withholding tax under Section 50a for rights holders resident abroad, to report this, and to pay it to the Federal Central Tax Office.
To avoid this deduction in future, you can apply for a certificate of exemption.
Alternatively, you have the option of claiming a refund of the Section 50a tax retrospectively.
For the refund, we can issue you with a tax certificate upon request after the end of the quarter or year, which you must submit to your local tax office.
To obtain the exemption certificate, you must submit an application for exemption from tax deduction for future remunerations (this is not possible retrospectively). You must submit an application under Section 50a of the Income Tax Act (EStG) directly to the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt).
You must submit an application for an exemption certificate according to §50a EStG directly to the Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt). The BZSt online portal (BOP) allows you to transmit data electronically to the Federal Central Tax Office. Since 1 January 2023, only online transmission is possible (see https://www.bzst.de/EN/Businesses/Withholding_taxes/Withholding_Tax_Relief/Forms/forms_node.html). Registration in the BOP portal of the BZSt is necessary for this (https://www.elster.de/bportal/start?locale=en_US).
Please note that we are not allowed to provide any further advice on how to register in the BOP portal (BZSt online portal). Please address any questions regarding this directly to the Federal Central Tax Office or to your tax advisor.
There are two different types of remuneration – you will receive a payment notification for each. Your first type of remuneration from the licence of rights (tacit consent) is subject to the reduced 7% VAT rate
. This applies only if you are registered in Germany, liable for VAT, and have indicated this in your VAT registration details.
No VAT is payable on your second type of remuneration (payouts of the type ‘Remuneration for private copying and reproduction and rental & lending’ – these are also referred to as remuneration for collection services). However, costs are incurred in connection with the remuneration for collection services, which we offset against your remuneration. These costs are subject to 19% VAT. Consequently, the amount of your remuneration from collection services is reduced by both the collection costs and the proportionate 19% VAT on the collection costs.
Different rules apply to rights holders resident abroad.
Under Section 139a of the German Fiscal Code (AO), there are four main tax numbers:
1. Tax number
2. Tax identification number (Tax ID),
3. VAT identification number (VAT ID),
4. Business identification number
A tax number is assigned to every natural or legal person by the tax office. Natural persons are also issued with a personal tax ID number. All companies that conduct business outside Germany are issued with a VAT ID number. In future, the business identification number is set to replace the tax number for all economically active natural and legal persons.
You will find a detailed explanation of the various tax numbers in the following questions.
Tax identification numbers are issued to taxpayers or businesses by the relevant tax office at their place of residence or registered office. This may change over time or depending on your place of residence. You will receive your tax identification number after you have submitted your first tax return or registered a business. You can find your tax identification number, for example, on your latest VAT assessment.
The tax number consists of 10–11 digits, divided into several blocks of numbers. These are often separated by slashes so that they stand out more clearly from the tax ID number.
Example: 12/345/6789 or 30 456 12345 --> We require this number in your notification of VAT status.
The VAT number identifies businesses within the EU and is intended to facilitate taxation in other European countries. It begins with a code for the country in which the business is based. This is followed by up to twelve digits; in Germany, there are nine digits.
Example: DE123456789
- We require this number in your notification of VAT status if you are liable for VAT.
To ensure unique identification, the BZSt will gradually assign an Economic Identification Number (W-IdNr.) to every economically active person from November 2024 onwards, without the need for an application. The Tax Identification Number, the tax number and the VAT registration number will continue to be used alongside the W-IdNr. However, the tax number is set to be replaced by the W-IdNr. in the future.
This is never required by the GVL.
Since GVL royalties are subject to VAT at a rate of 7%, please check and inform us if you are:
- You are a small business owner. (Do you qualify for the small business regulation under Section 19 of the German Value Added Tax Act (UStG)? This is the case if your secondary income, e.g. from GVL remuneration, did not exceed €25,000 in the previous year and is not expected to exceed €100,000 in the current year.) or
- are subjected to sales tax. (Do you issue invoices yourself with sales tax shown or do you make sales tax reports to the tax office?)
If this is the case, please inform us as soon as possible of your correct VAT number, as this is decisive for the payment of future distributions. You can find this information, for example, on your last sales tax notice. Alternatively, you can also provide us with your VAT ID. In Germany, this is represented as follows: DE+9 digits.
If you have any questions or are unsure about your VAT liability, please contact your local tax office.
Please note that we cannot make any payments of outstanding remuneration to you until your VAT liability has been finally determined.
If you are not liable for VAT, you do not need to enter a tax number on the VAT liability form. If you are liable for VAT, you will find your tax number or VAT registration number on your latest VAT return or VAT assessment notice.
If you are not liable for VAT, you fall under the small business scheme in accordance with Section 19 of the German VAT Act (USTG) – one of these two scenarios applies to every rights holder. If you fall under the small business scheme and your income from secondary employment, such as remuneration from GVL, is less than EUR 25,000, this does not mean that you own or have registered a small business.
Your VAT liability simply falls under this scheme. This means that your GVL distributions will be paid to you without VAT, as you do not submit a VAT return to the tax office. You can also make use of the small business scheme if you are in permanent employment subject to income tax.
Please notify us immediately of any changes to your VAT status.
If you live in another EU country and have a valid VAT number, you can provide this to us. If GVL has a valid EU VAT number on file, no tax will be deducted from the collection fees.
If your registered address is in a non-EU country, i.e. outside the EU, you do not need to provide us with a tax number. Your tax status, if any, has no bearing on payouts made by GVL.
If you have moved within Germany and have been assigned a new tax number (see Question 2) by your new local tax office, please let us know immediately. Please note that your VAT registration number may remain the same even if you move within Germany.
Please let us know immediately if your address changes. If you move from Germany to another country, your tax number will be removed from our records.
If you encounter any problems entering your VAT details, please feel free to contact us by email at finanzen.berechtigte@gvl.de or call us from Monday to Friday (10 am to 2 pm) on the following number: 030 48483 634.
Detailed reports include, in short, your entitlements which are projected for a specific usage year. Said projected total amount shows how much remuneration you are expected to receive at the end of the notification period. (The total amount is constantly updated. Usually it is adjusted upwards because successive reserves are dissolved, but sometimes downwards if, e.g. we unexpectedly receive more contribution notifications than anticipated.)
The distribution takes place in several stages due to the long statutory notification periods. There is an initial distribution with an initial amount, several subsequent distributions with further partial payments and eventually a final distribution when the notification deadlines expired and the distribution budget can be completely dissolved. You receive your overall entitlement at the end of the distribution cycle. The distributed amounts should, when added up, correspond to the amount shown in the last detailed statement.
The payout notifications you usually receive with a settlement always state the current remuneration entitlement and the amounts already paid out in the meantime (indicating the date of any related older payout notifications). The statements therefore document the progress of the “partial payments” of the advised total amount.
It increases the transparency of the calculation and shows the remuneration categorised into subject to VAT and not subject to VAT.
The amount usually consists of the final amount of both payout notifications. It is possible that you receive separate transfers within a few days.
You will usually receive two payout notices and the total amount, which is the sum of the two documents, should be positive. So you will participate in the distribution even though one of the documents shows a negative payout amount.
Background: The GVL's remuneration comes from the domains "rights transfer" and "private copying and rental/lending". These two areas are reported separately due to different taxation, so you will usually receive two payout notifications. However, your remuneration will be transferred in one sum.
Presumably you have received an advance or a down payment from the GVL in the past. Such advances are usually granted on revenues from the "rights transfer" area and could previously only be offset against revenues from this area.
However, we are now able to offset from both revenue sources. The advantage: Advances are reimbursed more quickly, so you receive remuneration from the GVL again more quickly.
You have probably received an advance or instalment payment from GVL in the past. Such advances are usually granted on revenues from the "rights transfer" area and could previously only be offset against revenues from this area.
However, we are now able to offset the two revenue sources. The advantage: Advances are refunded more quickly, i.e. you receive remuneration from GVL more quickly.
The amounts shown consist of two different portions: The first is GVL's administrative costs, which are a percentage of this remuneration share. The second component is costs that are charged to us. On the basis of Section 44 of the German Collecting Societies Act (VGG), GVL has entered into agreements with various partners regarding the collection of revenues, e.g. the proceeds from private copying and rental & lending. This is taken care of by organizations such as the Central Office for Private Transfer Rights (ZPÜ), the Central Office for Library Royalties (ZBT) or the Central Office for Video Rental (ZVV).
Collection costs must be reported separately and are subject to VAT since a change in the way revenue from private copying is viewed under tax law. This new regulation now makes their offsetting against revenues transparent.
The remuneration itself does not change as a result. Of course, the costs will only be charged proportionately if you actually receive money for the distribution.
The amounts shown consist of two different portions: The first is GVL's administrative costs, which are a percentage of this remuneration share. The second component is costs that are charged to us. On the basis of Section 44 of the German Collecting Societies Act (VGG), GVL has entered into agreements with various partners regarding the collection of revenues, e.g. the proceeds from private copying and rental & lending. This is taken care of by organizations such as the Central Office for Private Transfer Rights (ZPÜ), the Central Office for Library Royalties (ZBT) or the Central Office for Video Rental (ZVV).
Collection costs must be reported separately and are subject to VAT since a change in the way revenue from private copying is viewed under tax law. This new regulation now makes their offsetting against revenues transparent.
The remuneration itself does not change as a result. Of course, the costs will only be charged proportionately if you actually receive money for the distribution.
Collections for rental and lending and private copying are carried out by third-party organisations and paid through to GVL. This creates administration costs. Please click here for more information on this topic.
The exact amounts can always be found here in our annual transparency report.
The costs for GVL's own administrative expenses are based on the actual incurred costs for personnel, IT development, etc. In 2021, the cost rate actually decreased by 1 percent compared to the previous year's level due to increased revenues and was 9.7 percent.
Collection costs are made up of the following subtotals, which are deducted from your revenues on a percentage basis:
- Public reproduction (by GEMA) collection fee of up to 12.5%
- Rental (by GEMA/ZVV) collection fee of 30%
- Rental (by VG Wort/ZBT) collection fee of up to 3%
- Cable retransmission (by ARGE Kabel) collection fee of up to 10%
- Private copying (by ZPÜ) collection fee of up to 5%
In view of the financial bottlenecks that many performers suffer from, we were asked by a large number of rights holders and associations to offset advance payments only moderately against distributions in 2020.
Advances were determined specifically from forecasts for individual distribution years. During the regular distribution process, they are now assigned to the individual distribution years and offset with the corresponding amount, so that a combination of offsetting and payment can easily occur. This may, under certain circumstances, extend the settlement period, but has the desirable advantage that unexpectedly high remuneration in certain years will also be noticeable by rights holders. You will find information about prepayments and the amounts paid and cleared in each case on your payout notifications.
There can be various reasons for this:
- Has your personal master data changed recently? If there has been returned post or bank returns, we cannot carry out a payout. Please contact us to update your data to its current status.
- Have you received any advance payments recently, such as the corona advance? Then the distribution amount was probably fully offset or is now below the minimum limit of EUR 5.00.
- The payout amount is below the minimum limit of EUR 5.00.
- In some cases, the forecast for the value of contributing to a production must be adjusted downwards. Any overpayments that have taken place up to that point must first be offset against the payout amounts.