German taxes and deadlines — reliably taken care of.

A German tax number is needed as soon as taxable transactions are carried out in Germany for which liability does not shift to the customer. Typical cases are a warehouse in Germany, supplies to private individuals, supplies of work and construction services to non-taxable persons.

Where services are supplied exclusively to German businesses, the reverse charge under § 13b UStG often applies — the customer then owes the tax and a registration may not be necessary.

Which office is competent follows the country of establishment, not the place of activity: for companies established in France, for example, that is centrally the Finanzamt Offenburg (§ 1 Nr. 6 UStZustV).

The registration should be in place before the first transaction. We take care of it and of the running filings.

In most cases, no — fiscal representation in Germany has a far narrower scope than the equivalent arrangement in several other member states, the French représentant fiscal among them.

Under § 22a Abs. 1 UStG it presupposes that the business established abroad carries out exclusively exempt transactions in Germany and cannot deduct any input VAT. Anyone making taxable supplies or reclaiming input VAT registers and files in their own name.

In practice, fiscal representation therefore remains relevant essentially for exempt imports followed by an intra-Community supply. Those entitled to act as fiscal representatives are the persons authorised to give unrestricted tax advice under the Steuerberatungsgesetz (§ 22a Abs. 2 UStG); where it is admissible we take it on, and otherwise the ordinary registration.

A German corporation regularly files corporate tax, trade tax and annual VAT returns, plus the return for separate assessment where relevant. During the year there are preliminary VAT returns and wage tax returns.

The filing deadline follows § 149 AO:

• without an adviser — at the latest seven months after the end of the calendar year
• with a tax adviser — by the last day of February of the second following year; where the financial year differs from the calendar year, by 31 July of the second following year

The tax authorities may issue an early request in an individual case and call for the return sooner. We monitor the deadlines for all returns.

Special rules apply to intra-Community transactions: services to businesses in other EU countries are usually exempt under the reverse charge — liability shifts to the customer. Supplies to private individuals, by contrast, are subject to VAT in the country concerned.

We prepare and submit the corresponding returns.

The recapitulative statement under § 18a UStG is not a tax return but a control report to the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern, the Federal Central Tax Office: it lists exempt intra-Community supplies and reverse-charge services with the customer's VAT identification number and the amounts concerned.

Deadline: by the 25th day after the end of the reporting period.

• Intra-Community supplies of goods — monthly as a rule. Quarterly is sufficient as long as the total has not exceeded EUR 50,000 in the current quarter or in any of the four preceding ones.
• Other services under the reverse charge — quarterly.

The figures have to match the preliminary VAT return; differences lead to queries. We prepare and submit both and reconcile them against each other.

In short: every company established in Germany has had to be able to receive electronic invoices since 1 January 2025. Issuing them becomes mandatory on 1 January 2027 for companies with more than EUR 800,000 of turnover in the previous year, and on 1 January 2028 for everyone else.

The full set of questions — formats, exceptions, retention duties and sources — is set out under e-invoicing.

On application, the Finanzamt extends both the filing deadline for preliminary VAT returns and the payment deadline by one month (§ 46 UStDV). 10 February then becomes 10 March.

Where returns are filed monthly, a special advance payment is required in return: one eleventh of the total advance payments for the preceding calendar year (§ 47 UStDV). It is credited back during the year. Where returns are quarterly, it does not apply.

The additional month buys time for reconciliation — particularly where documents arrive from several countries. We file the application and monitor the annual declaration of the special advance payment.

There are two penalties. They attach to different failures and can arise alongside one another.

• Late filing penalty (§ 152 AO) — for filing late. The fixed percentage scale does not apply to preliminary VAT returns; under § 152 Abs. 8 AO the Finanzamt decides at its discretion, taking into account how long and how often the deadline was missed and the amount of tax involved. EUR 25,000 at most.
• Late payment surcharge (§ 240 AO) — for paying late. 1 % for each month begun, calculated on the arrears rounded down to the next amount divisible by EUR 50. Where payment is made by transfer, three days' grace remain (§ 240 Abs. 3 AO).

Filing on time and paying on time are therefore two separate duties. We monitor the deadlines.

Yes, as soon as a permanent commercial operation is maintained in Germany (§ 2 GewStG). Corporations always count as a commercial operation in full, by virtue of their legal form.

The calculation runs in three steps:

1. The starting point is the trade income — the profit, adjusted by the additions and deductions in §§ 8 and 9 GewStG.
2. To that is applied the tax base rate of 3.5 % (§ 11 Abs. 2 GewStG). The result is the trade tax base amount.
3. That amount is multiplied by the multiplier set by the municipality. The minimum multiplier is 200 % (§ 16 Abs. 4 Satz 2 GewStG); in practice the rates are mostly between 250 and 500 %.

The allowance of EUR 24,500 is available under § 11 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 GewStG only to individuals and partnerships, not to a GmbH.

Because the multiplier depends on the municipality, the burden on two otherwise identical companies differs considerably. We work the comparison through for your choice of location.

Three taxes interlock:

• Corporate income tax of 15 % on taxable income (§ 23 Abs. 1 KStG)
• Solidarity surcharge of 5.5 % on the corporate income tax — that is 0.825 percentage points. The threshold that removes it for most individuals does not apply to corporations.
• Trade tax, depending on the municipal multiplier — at a multiplier of 400 % that is 14 %.

In this example the total burden comes to roughly 29.8 %. Depending on location it ranges from about 22.8 % (at the minimum multiplier of 200 %) to a little over 33 % in large cities with high multipliers.

Unlike the position for unincorporated businesses, trade tax is not credited; for a GmbH it is a final burden, and since 2008 it is no longer deductible as a business expense either.

A distribution to the foreign parent company is in principle subject to withholding tax on capital income as well; whether and at what rate depends on the Parent-Subsidiary Directive and the applicable double taxation treaty. We handle the relief procedure with the Bundeszentralamt für Steuern.