Section 5: Taxation

§ 22g Particular obligations for payment service provider, power to issue provisions

(1) Payment service provider must record the following regarding cross-border payments:

1. as regards the payees the presented information

   1. the name or the business name of the payee

   2. any VAT identification number

   3. any other tax numbers

   4. the address of the payee and

   5. the IBAN of the payment account of the payee or, if the IBAN is not available, any other identifier which unambiguously identifies, and gives the location of, the payee,

2. the BIC or any other business identifier code that unambiguously identifies the payment service provider, who acts in the name of the payee, and his place, when the payee receives payments but does not have a payment account at this payment service provider as well as

3. the details of all cross-border payments provided in the respective calendar quarter and in this context identified refunds:

   1. the date and time of the payment or of the payment refund,

   2. the amount and the currency of the payment or of the payment refund,

   3. the Member State of origin of the payment or the Member State of destination of the refund, as well as the information used to determine the origin or the destination of the payment or of the payment refund,

   4. any reference which unambiguously identifies the payment or refund, and

   5. where applicable, information that the payment is initiated at the physical premises of the merchant.

Payment service providers are required to keep records according to sentence 1 where, in the course of a calendar quarter, a payment service provider provides payment services corresponding to more than 25 cross-border payments to the same payee. In this calculation all identifier of the payee according to sentence 1 number 1 lit. e and business identifier of the payment service provider according to sentence 1 number 2 shall be included. The number of cross-border payments shall be calculated by reference to the payment services provided by the payment service provider per Member State and per identifier of a payee. Where the payment service provider has information that the payee has several identifiers the calculation shall be made per payee.

(2) As cross-border payments according to paragraph 1 sentence 1 shall be considered payments which are provided by a payer located in a Member State except for the territories mentioned in article 6 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC in its currently valid version to a payee located in another Member State or in a third country territory. For the determination of the location of the payer and the payee the IBAN of the payment account of the payer and the payee or any other identifier which unambiguously identifies and gives the location of, the payer or the payee shall be used. In the cases where the allocation according to sentence 2 is in absence of such identifiers not possible, the location of the payment service provider acting on behalf of the payer or payee shall be relevant, using the BIC or any other business identifier code that unambiguously identifies the payment service provider and his location.

(3) The requirement according to paragraph 1 sentence 1 shall not apply to payment services provided by the payment service providers of the payer as regards any payment where at least one of the payment service providers of the payee is located in a Member State, as shown by that payment service provider’s BIC or any other business identifier code that unambiguously identifies the payment service provider and its location. The payment service providers of the payer shall nevertheless include those payment services in the calculation referred to in paragraph 1 sentence 2.

(4) The payment service provider shall submit the records according to paragraph 1 sentence 1 for each calendar quarter as well as his own BIC or any other business identifier code that unambiguously identify the payment service provider completely and correct to the Federal Central Tax Office by the end of the calendar month following the expiration of the calendar quarter (reporting period). The submission shall be done by using the official data set and data format via the official electronic interface.

(5) If the payment service provider subsequently realises that the submitted payment information are incorrect or incomplete, he is obligated to correct the incorrect statements or to complete them within a period of one month.

(6) The payment service provider shall retain the records according to paragraph 1 sentence 1 in electronic form for the period of three calendar years starting after the expiration of the calendar year in which the payment has bee executed.

(7) For the purpose of this Act, the following definitions apply:

1. “payment service provider” means the payment service provider or a natural or legal person mentioned in § 1 paragraph 1 number 1 to 3 of the payment services supervision law benefiting from an exemption in accordance with Article 32 of Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and the Council of 25 November 2015 on payment services in the internal market, amending Directives 2002/65/EC, 2009/110/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010, and repealing Directive 2007/64/EC (OJ L 337 of 23.12.2015, p. 35; L 169 of 28.6.2016, p. 18; L 102 of 23.04.2018, p. 97; L 126 of 23.05.2018, p. 10) who have its seat, its head administration or a branch establishment in accordance with § 1 paragraph 5 of the payment services supervision law and who provide from there the payment services or payment service provider who provide in accordance with Article 243b paragraph 4 lit. b of Directive (EU) 2020/284 of the Council of 18 February 2020 amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards introducing certain requirements for payment service providers (OJ L 62 of 02.03.2020, p. 7) in connection with § 1 paragraph 4 sentence 2 payment services supervision law in the inland payment services via cross-border movement of services or acting via an agent in accordance with § 1 paragraph 9 of the payment services supervision law, without being resident in the inland;

2. “payment service” means any of the business activities set out in § 1 paragraph 1 sentence 2 number 3 to 6 of the payment services supervision law;

3. “payment” means, subject to the exclusions provided for in § 2 paragraph 1 of the payment services supervision law, a payment transaction as defined in § 675f paragraph 4 sentence 1 of the German Civil Code or a money remittance as defined in § 1 paragraph 1 sentence 2 number 6 of the payment services supervision law;

4. “payer” means a person according to the definition in § 1 paragraph 15 of the payment services supervision law;

5. “payee” means a person according to the definition in § 1 paragraph 16 of the payment services supervision law;

6. “payment account” means an account as defined in § 1 paragraph 17 of the payment services supervision law;

7. “IBAN” means an international number as defined in Article 2 number 15 of Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2012 establishing technical and business requirements for credit transfers and direct debits in euro and amending Regulation (EC) No 924/2009 (OJ L 94 of 30.03.2012, p. 22) amended with Regulation (EU) No 248/2014, (OJ L 84 of 20.03.2014, p. 1);

8. “BIC” means an international bank code as defined in Article 2 number 16 of Regulation (EU) No 260/2012.

(8) The Federal Central Tax Office takes the payment information submitted in accordance with Article 4 and executes a solely automated examination of the submitted data whether the data are complete and plausible and whether the official data set has been used. The Federal Central Tax Office records this data in an electronic system only for the purpose of this examination until the submission to the central electronic payment information system. The Federal Central Tax Office retains and analyses the information made available to it in accordance with Article 24d in connection with Article 24c of the Regulation (EU) 2020/283 of the Council of 18 February 2020 amending Regulation (EU) No 904/2010 as regards measures to strengthen administrative cooperation in order to combat VAT fraud (OJ L 62 of 02.03.2020, p. 1) and provides this data the responsible Land revenue authorities. The Federal Central Tax Office is responsible for the examination of the compliance of the obligations which result from this provision for the payment service provider.

(9) The processing of personal data based on the submitted payment information of the payment service providers by the revenue authorities is an administration proceeding according to the Fiscal Code.

(10) The Federal Ministry of Finance shall be authorized, by ordinance issued with the consent of the Federal Council, to issue provisions on the processing and further processing of the data collected according to paragraph 8 sentence 3.