Financial Crisis: Entrepreneurs and Financial Experts from the Biotech Sector Write to the Federal Government

In a letter to the Federal Government sent in March, entrepreneurs from the biotech sector asked the government to be more generous and flexible and to withdraw the elements of the corporate tax reform that are detrimental to innovative small and medium-sized companies from all sectors.

In the letter addressed to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück and Economics Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the entrepreneurs stated clearly that unlike other economic sectors, they were not requesting state support worth millions of euro. However, they demand that the discrimination against innovative small and medium-sized companies resulting from the 2008 corporate tax reform be revoked and replaced by future-oriented innovation policies.

During the third financial summit of the biotech sector held in Frankfurt on 24 March, more than sixty financial experts from the biotechnology industry backed up this letter by writing to the Federal Government to demand that a stop be put to the increased discrimination against innovative small and medium-sized companies.

The increased taxation on equity capital due to the corporate tax reform places a strain on new, innovative companies that invest their capital in research and development. Financial experts from the biotechnology industry therefore demand that the way losses are handled in researching companies be amended retrospectively from 1 January 2009 and that tax credits for expenditure on research and development be allocated to the budgets from the beginning of the next legislative period. Only measures that improve the equity capital basis and flow directly to the companies will be able to bring about a sufficiently fast impact.

The open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück and Economics Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, signed by the biotech entrepreneurs and the financial experts is available in German as a PDF file at:
http://www.biodeutschland.org/presse09/pressemitteilungen.php