Business notifications, insolvency registration and business register
Business notifications
As laid down in the law on changing the industrial code and other business-related provisions of 23 November 1994, statistics on business notifications have had to be produced on a uniform basis for Germany since 1996. Business notifications include business registration, deregistration and modification. The obligation to report such events applies to independent local units, subsidiaries and dependent branches. The purpose of these statistics is to represent business notifications in their entirety and to provide information on the setting up and shutting down of businesses. However, representing such setting up and shutting down activities can only be approximated because notifications primarily serve administrative purposes. Registration is required when a new activity is started or a business is taken over, be it through purchase or succession, a partner entering the business, a change in legal form, or a relocation of the business to a different registr ation district. Similarly, deregistration is required when a business is shut down completely or in part, or is sold, a partner withdraws from the business, the legal form is changed, or the business is relocated to a different registration district. Modification is required when a business is relocated within the registration district or when its activity changes.
Insolvency registration
At the beginning of 1999, uniform insolvency regulations came into power in Germany to govern the arrangements between creditors and debtors in cases of a debtor's insolvency or over indebtedness. The new law governs in particular the satisfaction of the creditors' claims based on the proceeds gained from selling a debtor's property. The new law distinguishes between regular insolvencies and consumer insolvencies (simplified proceedings). One of the major amendments in the context of the new insolvency law was the introduction of proceedings regarding the discharge of residual debt, which gives all natural persons, namely consumers, sole proprietors and also self-employed professionals, the opportunity to achieve a discharge of residual debt. To this end, the debtor has to make available the seizable part of his income to satisfy his debts during a "period of good conduct" which was shortened to six years. In accordance with another amendment to the insolvency law in December 2001, destitute natural persons who are not able to pay the costs of the insolvency proceedings, may now be granted a delay in paying the costs. This facilitates the opening of insolvency proceedings which are in turn a precondition for achieving a discharge of residual debt. The new insolvency law, which took effect in 1999, and the subsequent amendments of late 2001 have had an adverse effect on the comparability of current statistical data with figures of preceding years. This applies in particular to figures regarding insolvencies of natural persons. Since, however, sole proprietors and self-employed professionals – who, in statistical terms, are regarded as enterprises – are natural persons, too, the comparability of data regarding the development of enterprise insolvencies is limited as well.
Enterprises and local units in the business register
The German business register is a regularly updated database of enterprises and local units with a taxable turnover from deliveries and output and employees subject to social insurance contributions. Evaluations of business register data on the number of enterprises and local units and their employees, who are subject to social insurance contributions, and their sales (turnover) reveal economic structures in Germany.
