Corporate services

Registration with the authorities

Anyone forming a company in Germany has to register with several bodies: the tax office, the trade office, the social security authorities and, depending on the sector, others.

We gather the necessary documents in good time and file the registrations, so that you can concentrate on your business.

VAT registration

On the VAT side we take on:

• An analysis of your situation for VAT purposes — is there an obligation to register at all?
• Collecting all information and documents required for the registration
• Correspondence with the tax office
• Preparing and filing preliminary VAT returns, the annual VAT return and EC sales lists

Set out in full on the VAT page.

Bookkeeping

We post in DATEV, the software most widely used by German tax firms. For internationally active clients we also post transactions in the client's own system via remote data transfer.

Posting texts can be entered in German, English or Russian. That sounds like a detail, but it decides whether your head office abroad can read the accounts without asking.

The frequency follows your requirements and the statutory deadlines for preliminary VAT returns: monthly, quarterly or annually — weekly or daily where that is what you need.

Reports beyond the standard set

• Fixed asset schedules
• Open item lists for debtors and creditors
• Aging lists
• Inventory and stock reports

Payroll accounting

We advise on how to set up the payroll process so that it works for both sides: little effort for the employer, the best possible net amount for the employee.

The lever is salary components that stay free of wage tax or are taxed at a flat rate — from travel passes and benefits in kind to occupational pension schemes.

Whether you have one employee or several hundred makes no difference to the approach. We also handle the questions that come with payroll:

• Company cars (logbook, one-percent rule, privately held vehicles)
• Severance payments
• Occupational pension schemes
• Bonus and participation programmes
• Payroll tax and social security audits
• Notifications to the social security authorities

Financial statements

German companies normally prepare financial statements once a year, consisting of:

• balance sheet
• profit and loss account
• notes

The annual tax returns come on top. Large and medium-sized companies have to draw up the accounts within 3 months of the balance sheet date, small ones within 6 months (§ 264 HGB). Where the accounts are prepared by a licensed tax consultancy firm, the deadline for the tax returns is extended considerably — which matters when documents still have to arrive from abroad.

On request we prepare a reconciliation between German commercial law (HGB) and your local GAAP, so that the figures fit into group reporting.

Tax returns

As part of the year-end process, a corporation has to file three returns:

• corporate income tax return (Körperschaftsteuererklärung)
• trade tax return (Gewerbesteuererklärung)
• annual VAT return (Umsatzsteuererklärung)

The burden depends on two things: corporate income tax plus the solidarity surcharge, which is the same nationwide, and trade tax, whose multiplier each municipality sets for itself. For the seat of a company that is one criterion among several, and the only one you can still choose freely before incorporation.

What it means for your company we calculate from your figures and your registered seat.

There are numerous lawful ways to reduce the burden: the treatment of interest expense, transfer pricing, offsetting losses between periods.