September 2007
Bundestag Hearing on the Draft Law on the Modernisation of Conditions for Capital Investments
BIO Deutschland was invited by the Bundestag’s parliamentary standing committee on finance to an expert hearing on the Law on the Modernisation of Conditions for Capital Investments. In a statement by the association on the current governmental draft, Dr Jan Schmidt-Brand, CEO of Heidelberg Pharma AG, head of BIO Deutschland’s Working Group on Finance and Taxation, and a member of the board of BIO Deutschland in 2008-2009, acknowledged that there were several positive elements in the government’s accurate analysis of competitive disadvantages in the field of capital investments. “However, important concerns held by BIO Deutschland have still not been taken into account,” Schmidt-Brand added. The current draft does not achieve its target and as a result, Germany will fall further behind in the competition to provide attractive conditions for research and development. With venture capital remaining outside Germany, or leaving the country, there is also a risk of a reduction in technological performance capacity and innovation. However, in BIO Deutschland’s view, there is still hope that the draft law could prevent the negative effects of the Corporate Tax Reform for at least some of the innovative small and medium-sized enterprises if these innovative firms can make unrestricted use of deficits carried forward from research expenditure, capital gains from investments in small, innovative firms remain tax-free, and the minimum fragmentation limit is abolished in order to make it possible for private investors to spread out their venture capital investments.