The Annual Tax Act 2024 amends the rules on the taxation of a lifetime benefit from a foreign tax-priviledged retirement account / pension plan. § Section 22 no. 5 is amended as follows: a) In sentence 2, the words "Section 3 no. 66 and" are replaced by the words "Section 3 no. 66," and the words "and are not based on contributions to a foreign pension scheme for which a comparable tax exemption or favourable treatment was granted for German taxation or taxation in another state" are inserted after the words "were acquired".
This restores the legal situation prior to the BFH ruling of 28 October 2020, X R 29/18. The change could also have consequences for the taxation of the death benefit of a 401k and IRA (except Roth IRA). In this respect, we refer to the article US retirement plan: Legal Consequences of Death and Taxes.
