Tax Accounting Services for German Nonprofit Organizations & Private Foundations

High-level tax expertise for Nonprofit Organizations & Private Foundations

WINHELLER Attorneys at Law & Tax Advisors work with a large number of nonprofit organizations including private foundations and help them with all their questions with the German nonprofit laws and foundation laws in general. But we do not just stop there. If you need assistance with understanding the tax system or if you are looking for a tax consultant to file your nonprofit organization´s or private foundation´s taxes, we are there to help.

We assist nonprofit and charitable organizations and private foundations from Germany and abroad in successfully structuring their charitable projects and in receiving all tax benefits they are entitled to. We specifically help foreign organizations from within the European Union to get recognized by the German tax authorities as charitable organizations under German nonprofit tax law. As a result, these foreign charities will be able to realize their income from German sources tax-free, even if they are not physically present in Germany. We also regularly represent German subsidiaries of foreign nonprofit/charitable parent companies furthering all sorts of charitable, educational and religious purposes within Germany and abroad.

The basic approach of WINHELLER is to avoid risky and expensive legal disputes from the beginning. Your organization should not only find the approval from the tax authorities in the first place but also keep its tax-exempt status permanently. This requires expert legal advice accompanying all your organization´s business decisions. And this is exactly what you can expect from us. We have been repeatedly awarded by independent parties as one of Germany's leading firms regarding legal and tax services for nonprofit organizations and private foundations. You can trust that we do not only pretend to be good, but that we indeed have a proven track record you can rely on.

• help you create and incorporate your nonprofit organization in Germany including making the right decision as to which legal form to choose for your German organization (nonprofit legal liability company, private foundation, nonprofit association), 
• draft or check your organizational documents and improve them so that they satisfy all German legal requirements for having your organization recognized as an entity exempt under German nonprofit tax law,
• assist newly formed and already existing organizations in working out the best organizational structure (for example with respect to the formation of a separate legal entity for unrelated business activities subject to corporate income tax),
• take care of your financial and payroll accounting, the financial annual statements and all required tax returns for your organization including the so called “Gem1” tax return for charitable organizations,
• give advice on how to manage your German nonprofit organization in a way that is compliant with German law including German nonprofit tax law and the German foundation laws,
• help with any other tax and legal issues that may arise with respect to your nonprofit organization and discuss on your behalf all upcoming legal and tax issues with the (tax and other supervisory) authorities,
• help develop a legal and tax secured sponsorship concept for your nonprofit organization which includes drafting the required sponsorship contracts,
• advise your donors on the most tax efficient way of giving to your organization (charitable donations),  
• review and improve your fundraising strategies legally and from a tax perspective; this is especially challenging when it comes to cross-border donations and/or grants from a foreign country to your German organization (international giving) since in these cases two tax regimes and the respective double taxation treaties have to be taken into account.
• Of course, we will also rigorously defend your nonprofit tax-exempt status in case the German Revenue Service intends to revoke it – before the tax authorities as well as all German tax courts.