Publication obligation

Definition of obligation to publish

The wealth tax liability is the obligation to publish the annual financial statements or the consolidated financial statements. In addition, there is the management report or the group management report, the report of the supervisory board (Section 171 (2) AktG) and information on the appropriation of profits (Section 325 ABs. 1 HGB).

Publicity Act (PublG)

This informs the public about what is happening in the company. Details are regulated by the Commercial Code (HGB) and the Publicity Act (PublG).

The subject of publicity is the annual accounting of companies. The scope of the documents to be published (statutory disclosure requirement) depends on the legal form, size and area of activity of the company:

According to Section 325 of the German Commercial Code (HGB), corporations have to regularly publish company data.

large corporations & the balance sheet date

Large corporations must be regular within 9 months of the Balance sheet date publish the annual financial statements.

Medium-sized corporations can dispense with the publication of sales revenues, certain balance sheet items and information in the notes (Section 327 of the German Commercial Code). This applies to a number of employees Total assets € 13.75 million and with a turnover of € 27.5 million, whereby at least two of the three characteristics must apply.

Small corporations

According to Section 326 of the German Commercial Code, small corporations do not have to publish their annual financial statements until 12 months after the reporting date. You can dispense with the publication of the income statement and the management report, and you can reduce the disclosures in the notes and the structure of the balance sheet.

The large non-corporations, e.g. B. Personnel trading companies (e.g. OHG, KG), sole traders, actual merchants publish according to the Publicity Act (PubIG).