Dr. Kornelia Wittmann LL.M. (Int Tax Law, Vienna)

Kornelia’s practice focuses on national and international corporate tax law and tax structuring, tax audits and tax disputes including fiscal criminal law proceedings. She also advises in banking and financial market supervisory law. Kornelia is admitted as a lawyer (Munich Bar Association) and as a tax advisor.

Selected representations
Kornelia advises domestic and international corporations, credit and financial institutions on transactions and tax structuring and on binding tax rulings. Her clients also include high net-worth individuals. A particular focus of Kornelia is on tax disputes before the Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzgericht) and the Supreme Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof) as well as on the settlement of international tax disputes (mutual agreement and arbitration proceedings). She regularly advises clients in connection with self-disclosures with penal waiver effect, tax audits and fiscal criminal tax proceedings. In addition, Kornelia regularly is involved in internal investigations both with respect to the investigation of the facts and circumstances as well as the tax and financial criminal law analysis thereof.

Selected representations include:

• Family-owned holding company on the sale of its majority stake in legendary Austrian food producer WOJNAR Group and on entering into a strategic partnership with VIVATIS
• Tax and financial criminal law aspects in internal investigations
• Selected representations in tax disputes and financial criminal law proceedings relating to transfer of IP and license payments, offshore payments and request to disclose the beneficial recipient, debt push down structures, attribution of income, allegation of abuse of law, wage and income tax assessments in the course of tax audits as well as as well as limited tax liability and withholding taxes
• Representation of a credit institution before the Court of Justice of the European Union
• heidelpay Group, a German technology company for international payments, with KKR as investor, on the acquisition of the Paysafe Group’s Pay Later business (payolution GmbH)
• ATX listed IMMOFINANZ AG on a EUR 356m combined share placement and the first-to-market issue of subordinated mandatory convertible notes
• Constantia Flexibles on the EUR50m settlement upon the squeeze-out compensation for Constantia Packaging shareholders

Publications and Lectures

Kornelia Wittmann has published several articles on tax law, including „Die Entdeckung eines Finanzvergehens als Strafbarkeitsvoraussetzung nach dem FinStrG“ together with Nicolas Wolski, ZSS 1/2019, “Der Kontroll- und Beherrschungsbegriff im Kartell-, Steuer- und internationalen Bilanzrecht” (“The Concept of Control and Dominancy in Antitrust, Tax and International Accounting Law”) together with Astrid Ablasser-Neuhuber in “Umgründungen: Festschrift für Hanns F. Hügel zum 65. Geburtstag”  (“Reorganisations: Publication on the 65^th anniversary of Hanns F. Hügel”), LexisNexis, 2016 and “RuSt 2017: Rechtsschutz in Abgabensachen” (“Legal protection in tax matters”) together with Peter Unger, RdW 11/2017. Also, for several years now Kornelia is a co-author of the Austrian chapters of  “Corporate Tax Planning Law Review”, “Tax Disputes and Litigation Review” as well as “Tax Controversy“ (Lexology), “Tax Comparative Guide” (Legal500) and “Tax Controversy” as well as “Corporate Tax“ in the Chambers Global Practice Guide.

Rankings | Awards
Kornelia is recognised for her work in tax law by various law directories such as Chambers and Partners (“Her knowledge of tax law is phenomenal. She has a strong focus in litigation and financial criminal law, and provides excellent support in international tax law and corporate tax law.“ and “Her knowledge is amazing, it’s really very profound and she is honest about what is doable. She is really focused in a very calm way; we always felt like we were in good hands.”), Legal 500 (“Dr. Kornelia Wittmann: perfect support in tricky tax negotiations with authorities.“) and International Tax Review, World Tax (“highly regarded”, “Another prominent team member is Kornelia Wittmann, who is particularly focused on tax litigation.(…). The team of Gerald Schachner and Kornelia Wittmann has in-depth knowledge, they give clear answers and have an international network – that is time saving for managers“). International Tax Review recommends Kornelia Wittmann also in the category Woman in Tax Leaders.

CV
Kornelia (Dr., Diplom-Juristin Univ., Dipl.-Kffr. Univ) has degrees in law and business administrations of the Universities of Passau (Germany) and Széchenyi István (Hungary) and obtained an LL.M. for International Tax Law. She is also a certified expert in financial criminal law and admitted both as Hungarian and Austrian tax advisor. She has been with bpv Huegel since 2012. Prior to that, she worked for PwC for several years. In addition to her work as a lawyer Kornelia is lecturer for tax law at the University of Applied Sciences for Management & Communication of the Chamber of Commerce of Vienna.

Memberships
Bar of Lower Austria, Bar Association, Munich Bar Association, Chamber of Tax Advisors and Auditors

Languages
German, English, Hungarian

Publications