You want to sell a commercial property in Germany. Someone suggests transferring it into private assets first so that only a private sale would follow. This mental shortcut does not answer the tax question. The transfer and the subsequent disposal must be examined as a connected plan with their respective prerequisites.
Do not relabel the existing allocation yourself
Our editorial recommendation: present the tax adviser with the previous asset allocation, use and accounting records. A building is not removed from business assets merely by changing its label in a private list. Whether and how an actual withdrawal (Entnahme) has taken place belongs to the concrete review.
Describe the entire intended procedure including the already existing sales interest. A single step is not advised in isolation while a sale planned shortly afterwards remains unmentioned.
The withdrawal has its own valuation question
§ 6 Absatz 1 Nummer 4 Satz 1 EStG generally names the pro rata fair value (Teilwert) for withdrawals and the special cases referred to there. Number 1 explains the concept of Teilwert. [ESTG-6] The article does not set a value and does not calculate a withdrawal tax.
A historical purchase price, a current book value and one’s own sales expectation are therefore not interchangeable figures. The advice determines the valuation and tax treatment required for the specific step. The absence of an external purchase price at the time of withdrawal does not automatically mean that there is nothing to value.
The subsequent private sale remains a separate review
§ 23 Absatz 1 Satz 2 EStG treats for that provision the transfer into private assets by withdrawal or cessation of business as acquisition. [ESTG-23] The previously long possession of the property allocated to business use is therefore not simply a complete answer to every later private-sale question.
Whether the specific follow-up sale fulfils the factual requirements, which exception applies and which values are used is examined separately by the adviser. The article asserts neither an automatic tax liability nor an automatic tax exemption after the withdrawal.
An invented plan with two closely spaced steps
An entrepreneur wants first to transfer a previously business-owned property into private ownership and then sell it to a buyer already known. His own calculation contains only the later expected receipt of payment minus the bank debt.
He now has withdrawal, valuation and follow-up sale examined together. The professional calculation can contain several points in time and different reference values. Only from this does the basis for actually available liquidity arise. The article promises no advantage from such an intermediate step.
Decide on the basis of the complete result
Request a comprehensible presentation of the two transactions and their dependencies. Record assumptions and any documents still missing for the reviewed variant. If dates or use change, these will be reported afterwards. In this way a step proposed as a simplification remains a deliberately examined arrangement and does not become the apparent possibility of making a gain disappear merely by renaming it.