Whether you are planning or growing your German business activities, our spezialized tax attorneys and accountants can help make your German business activities compliant and more efficient. And by working as a team, our accountants and attorneys can offer you one-stop services that take into account all relevant legal issues – ranging from corporate law and customs law to banking and finance law.

We also advise individual taxpayers and have attorneys (German tax attorneys and US tax attorneys), accountants and support staff who can assist you in English, German, Italian or Russian. 

Our services include:

• Tax and financial accounting for businesses (including compliance with German, US-GAAP, IFRS and other reporting standards)
• Payroll accounting
• Tax returns
• Annual financial statements
• International tax planning (including tax evaluations of vehicles available for doing business in Germany, e.g. subsidiaries, branch offices, representative offices and permanent establishments)
• Tax due diligences
• Transfer pricing
• Representation before the German Revenue Service and litigation before all German tax courts 
• Representation in matters involving prosecution for tax fraud or tax crimes
• Customs law
• Tax accounting for nonprofit organizations and private foundations
• Drafting equivalency affidavits for German recipient organizations on behalf of US private foundations

WINHELLER is a full service business law firm as well as a full service tax consultancy in Germany. As a result, we provide a comprehensive, one-stop approach that has proven very effective for international clients entering the German market. The teamwork between our German tax attorneys and accountants also ensures that we have a hands-on understanding of how your business works – allowing us to provide commercially viable legal and tax advice that works for your company.

We consider ourselves a central contact point for all of our clients’ legal and tax issues. And we pride ourselves on short and well-established lines of communication both internally and between us and our clients. If you trust WINHELLER with your tax law and tax accounting matters, you can rest assured that you will be able to leave multiple contacts in the past and rely on us for any tax and accounting issues that you may face now or in the future.   

Companies we have advised when they first began doing business in Germany (e.g. by helping them set up a subsidiary, drafting employment contracts, etc.) also often rely on WINHELLER for tax consulting services, which are provided by our experienced international tax team and its director, Certified Tax Law Specialist Attorney Dr. Astrid Plantiko.

Planning ahead in this manner avoids problems and saves costs down the line. Some of the tax issues that should be dealt with early through proactive tax planning include:

Loans and financing:

• How to finance the German subsidiary (loan or equity)?

Director pay and payroll:

• Is there a limit as to the managing director´s salary?
• Is the managing director required to pay German social security taxes?

Tax returns:

• How should the German Revenue Service’s catalog of detailed questions be answered after the company has been incorporated?

Transfer pricing:

• How should the rendering of services or the delivery of goods to the German company (or to the parent company abroad) be invoiced and what prices should be applied? 

If you already have a tax accountant and are pleased with his services, we are happy to limit our services to legal matters. However, if you are not satisfied with your current accountant, we can make the process of transferring your tax return, accounting and payroll matters to WINHELLER fast and painless.

There are strategic and cost advantages to be had by receiving legal, accounting and tax advice from a single source. Furthermore, WINHELLER has a broad understanding of international tax matters and has served a large number of international corporate and private clients from diverse industries,  including the financial services providers, non-profits, religious organizations and private foundations. And if you choose us for all of your legal, accounting and tax advice, we will take make sure that your data is transferred quickly and securely.

A very significant cost factor in legal and tax consulting is the amount of time spent on communication, research and case development. If companies retain two different firms to handle their legal and tax consulting, the amount of time spent on these matters can easily double.

Duplicating communication, research and case development efforts is not just highly inefficient and very expensive: it is also error-prone. Thus, in our experience, tax and legal advice should come from a single source. 

We pride ourselves on providing specialized international tax advisory services at reasonable and competitive rates. For any ongoing accounting work, drafting of tax returns and annual financial statements, we usually charge rates pursuant to the official German Tax Consultants’ Fee Ordinance. Other legal work and tax advice is generally charged on an hourly rate basis.