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Rainer Schmitt
Rainer Schmitt

Rainer Schmitt

Partner
Frankfurt
+49.69.945.196.290
Email Rainer Schmitt @ rainer.schmitt@klgates.com
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Rainer Schmitt is a partner in the firm's tax practice group in Frankfurt.

He focuses on the structuring and implementation of cross-border investments, reorganizations and financing, and advises institutional investors on European investment structuring.

Among his clients are national and cross-border investors, corporations, banks, insurance companies and opportunity funds, as well as initiators. He advises on tax and insurance regulatory structuring, the optimization of national and cross-border investments in various asset classes, portfolio transactions, restructurings, financings and refinancings and joint ventures, as well as tax controversies, including tax field audits.

Rainer has been frequently recommended by JUVE Handbuch 2013/14–2017/18, a leading German legal directory. Legal 500, 2016, Chambers Europe 2016, Chambers Global 2014 and 2015, and Best Lawyers/Handelsblatt 2017–2019 also recommend him.

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE

Rainer joined K&L Gates as a partner in May 2010. Prior to joining the firm, he worked as a partner in the tax department of a Frankfurt-based international law firm. In 2002–2003, he was on secondment to Lehman Brothers Real Estate Investment Banking Division, London. He qualified as a bank clerk at Deutsche Bank AG in Hamburg.

Rainer regularly gives lectures at Deutsches Anwaltsinstitut e.V. (DAI) and International School of Management (ISM), among others, and publishes articles on domestic and international tax law including in annotations, tax books and in the legal press, for instance: „Der Forderungsverzicht zu Gunsten einer ausländischen Immobilienkapitalgesellschaft ist nach Ansicht des FG Berlin-Brandenburg (Urteil vom 12.11.2014, Az. 12 K 12320/12) im Inland nicht steuerbar‟ (“Waiving receivables against a non-German real estate corporation is not a taxable event in Germany pursuant to regional tax court Berlin-Brandenburg”), Immobilien Zeitung 48/2015, p. 12.

Additional Thought Leadership Pages
  • “No Real Estate Transfer Tax Applicable” (Keine Grunderwerbsteuer für die Einbringung von Immobilien), Immobilien Zeitung, p. 16, May 4, 2017, German article
  • “German Taxation of Inbound Real Estate Investments,” in Understanding German Real Estate Markets by Just/Maennig, Springer publishers, 2nd edition, 2016, co-author
    V. Farle
  • “German international tax law” (Deutsches internationales Steuerrecht), C.H. Beck Verlag, 2015, co-author V. Farle, German book
  • “Alternative routes for a removal of dormant companies with excess debt” (Handlungsoptionen zur Beseitigung inaktiver Gesellschaften mit Schuldenüberhang — zugleich Anmerkung zu BFH Urteil vom 20.9.2012 IV R 28/10 DB 2012, 2789), Der Betrieb 8.2013, 1746, co-author V. Farle, German article
  • (German) Federal Finance Court, judgment of September 20, 2012, IV R 29/10, Immobilien Zeitung, p. 12, January 2013
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