Tax and Healthcare Law

At the beginning of an engagement or its restructuring, the first step is to choose the appropriate legal form. This applies both to the decision as to which, if any, public or private legal form an institution should take, and to the form of cooperation between different institutions, for example, in the area of personnel, major medical equipment or specialist medical services.

The choice of legal form determines the form of taxation and the possibility of claiming tax benefits. It also includes tax optimisation in the controlled group with holding structures and subsidiaries.

In order to increase efficiency and expand revenues, public-sector business entities and non-profit corporations are also increasingly active in areas outside their actual tax-privileged core activities. Conversely, more and more sectors are being opened up to competition from the point of view of European law, so that healthcare institutions are increasingly competing with taxable players (for example, physicians in private practice, private clinics).

This may result in the necessity of allocating activities to the four spheres under non-profit law: idealistic sphere, special-purpose operation, asset management and taxable commercial business operation. We advise you to arrange the activities in such a way that the tax privilege of your institution is not compromised by economic activities.

Increasingly, management is looking for the success for their institutions in a combination of talents incorporating multidisciplinary expertise for the benefit of patients. These requirements necessitate contracts under company law and the law of obligations that grant those involved sufficient professional freedom, while at the same time implementing compliance requirements - especially under medical law - and formulating the common goals of the cooperations in a legally effective manner.

We would be happy to present you with further industry-specific offers if required. Contact us.

Turning competitors into partners – hospital transactions in a municipal environment.

An article by Dr Thorsten Helm and Martin Hohmann, KU Gesundheitsmanagement 5/2020