Forms, deadlines, plain answers.

After an initial conversation we record the relevant company data, review the existing structures and put together an individual plan covering payroll, tax and social security. The processes are then implemented.

If you already have an adviser: changing is more straightforward than most people assume — we request the records from the outgoing adviser. The full sequence is set out under changing advisers.

Yes. You do not have to wait until the year end. The usual cut is at the end of a month or a quarter, so that the preliminary VAT return and the payroll stay cleanly separated.

What mainly determines the timing is the handover of data: the outgoing adviser releases the records — they are obliged to under § 66 StBerG — and the bookkeeping balances move from firm to firm as a data transfer. Once they are complete, the running bookkeeping can be continued without a break.

The sequence in seven steps is set out under changing advisers.

Through the initial consultation. It is free, takes thirty minutes and serves to gauge the scope of the work and the effort involved.

You then receive an individual proposal based on exactly those two things — the scope of the areas you want to hand over, and the effort they involve.

You can arrange a conversation on the contact page.

To act for you before the Finanzamt we need a power of attorney. Under § 80a AO it is transmitted electronically through the register kept by the Bundessteuerberaterkammer, the federal chamber of tax advisers; a paper power of attorney is as a rule no longer required.

After that you do not have to keep track of notices and deadlines — we do. Where we hold the authority, assessment notices come to us directly. We check them, keep the appeal deadline in view and come back to you when something needs to be done.

Where the business is based abroad this is more than a convenience. Notices can be made available for electronic retrieval under § 122a AO instead of being sent by post — and under § 122a Abs. 4 AO they count as served on the fourth day after they are made available. The deadline therefore starts to run whether or not anyone has opened the notice. With us holding the authority, it starts where the notice is also dealt with.

That leaves aside the separate question of an address in Germany that accepts formal service — see registered office.

Yes. In many engagements the adviser abroad looks after the parent company and we look after the German entity.

The interfaces are usually the same ones: reconciling the intercompany balances, the bridge from the German accounts to the group standard, and the transfer pricing documentation, whose group part comes from there and whose German part comes from us.

Because we are active in Germany and in France, we can put the German requirements in a form that arrives at head office without a round of translation.

We advise in German, French and English. Advice, bookkeeping and the annual accounts are all available in the three languages — as is the correspondence with the Finanzamt and the exchange with your head office.

All data is processed in line with the GDPR and held on secure European servers. Sensitive information is transmitted only in encrypted form over protected channels.

On top of that comes the professional duty of confidentiality to which tax advisers are subject — it goes further than data protection law and applies without limit in time.