"The Draft Bill on Esports Non-Profit Status Creates More Problems Than It Solves."
The draft bill on the 2025 Tax Amendment Act, prepared by the German Federal Ministry of Finance, contains an approach to the non-profit status of esports in Germany for the first time. However, according to game - the German Games Industry Association, the E-Sport-Bund Deutschland e.V. (ESBD) and the Landessportbund Nordrhein-Westfalen, this approach is ineffective and causes more problems than it solves.
The game association, the ESBD (German Esports Federation) and the Landessportbund Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia State Sports Federation) have also clarified that the current draft would fundamentally hinder the efforts of eeports and traditional sports to organise themselves and find common ground with regard to the Olympic eeports Games. A particularly critical point is that esports would have to be included in the section on the non-profit status of sport in the German Tax Code. Otherwise, sports clubs would only be able to establish esports programmes by amending their constitution, which requires the consent of all members. "In practice, this bureaucratic hurdle is usually almost impossible to overcome," emphasise the three organisations. In addition, the old debate on violence unnecessarily raises an issue that has long been resolved. Furthermore, there is no clear statement that the regulation does not set a precedent for equating esports with sport automatically.