Consulting.

Taxpayers which are employed in Germany and have no other income in- or outside Germany can file a year end tax return voluntarily (to get money back); people with other sources of income (e.g. contractor income or income from property) have to file a year end tax return.

German tax system is very complicate with a floating tax rate and many possibilities to deduct costs from your taxable income.

Contact us.

  • We will make a free analysis of your tax case,
  • Gove an opinion if you will get money back
  • and give you then our offer to prepare a tax declaration.

Then it’s your turn and you can decide if you want to stop or to proceed with Cosmotax.

We will show you then which way to go best, whih costs are deductable and help you to get a maximum amount of taxes back.

Income tax declaration for contractors.

Contractors get the tax status of being self-employed. Therefore no wage tax is deducted from their income. Based on estimated income or prior year’s income, quarterly tax prepayments have to be made. Monthly VAT statements have to be prepared and submitted. There are many ways to minimize your tax. Important options or ways to save taxes are:

  • Treatment of resident / non-resident in Germany. Depending on your individual case, we give consult to you which option is better to minimize your taxes
  • Under certain circumstances you can get material tax reliefs if you are married or have children, even if your wife and children do not live in Germany. We will inform you about your options.

We will tell you how to deduct a maximum of costs, i.e. tell you how to deduct

  • German apartment/ hotel costs
  • Travel costs to Germany and back home
  • Food allowances
  • Phone costs
  • Insurance costs
  • Project application costs
  • General allowances for office supply, banking fees, travel costs in Germany (e.g. your daily way to your office plant etc. )

Cosmotax provides compliance and accounting service to dozens of contractors and we will give you advice how to get your project in Germany started best. We will tell you :

  • How to get a bank account in Germany
  • Which insurances are important and which not
  • At which authorities you have to register
  • How to comply with German tax rules a
  • How to minimize your German taxes.

Call or email us to discuss your plans. We will show you how to comply and get the best return on investment.

Income tax declaration for employed persons.

Income tax from employed German taxpayers is withheld from their employer and directly paid by the employer to the tax office (wage tax; PAYE, pay as you earn) .

There are different ways how to minimize your tax bill:

  • You can either at the beginning reduce your wage tax withheld by applying for special allowances (e.g. allowance for children or high double household apartment costs) or
  • you can file a year end tax return claiming all business related costs back.

Cosmotax will help you to minimize your tax bill.

Inheritance tax.

German assets (typically property) inherited of donated to some one (no matter if German resident or passport) may become subject to inheritance / donation tax. We have specialists showing you how to minimize or even avoid these taxes. Important options / ways how to minimize the tax burden are:

  • Use all your individual tax exempt amounts
  • Transfer (parts of ) assets before death
  • Special German legal models, e.g. beneficial interest model / lifehold / usufruct
  • Find the best way to minimize the valuation of transferred assets (e.g. by specific valuation appraisals)

Call or email our specialists for inheritance and taxation tax. We will give you a free first analysis of your case. Then you can take further steps to minimize / avoid taxes.

Pension refund.

Did you work in Germany as employee?

Was your German employment period less than 5 years?

Are you Non-EU cititzen, e.g. US, Canadian, Indian or Australian?

If you can answer all these three questions with yes, you probably get back all contributions for pension insurance. Those contributions were not actually paid by you but were withheld from your employer from your monthly salary and paid directly to German pension insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung).

How much money will you get back?

You should get back the ‘employee’s portion’ of all pension contributions. These are currently 9,3 % of monthly salary up to a threshold of EUR 6.500 (as of year 2018). Numbers change from year to year and also may depend on the area in Germany you worked).

Example 1: You worked in 2017 for 12 months in Germany. Your monthly goss salary was EUR 2.500. You should get a refund for year 2017 of: 9,3% of (12*2.500)= EUR 2.790.

Example 2: You worked in 2017 for 12 months in Germany. Your monthly goss salary was EUR 6.800. You should get a refund for year 2017 of: 9,3% of (12*6.500; maximum threshold)= EUR 7.254.

Our office offers to you a free analysis of your case. Send over per email or courier relevant info / doc. We will check for you if you are entitled to get a refund of your pension contributions. We will not charge for this service. Having the result of our analysis, you can decide whether to stop or to proceed with our office.

The process of claiming the money back: My office will forward to you a questionnaire asking all relevant questions. Those are personal info like name, date of birth,.. info relating to your German assignment and your current residence status. We will use those info to apply at the authority in charge for your refund. German authorities will also ask for a confirmation about your cititzenship / residence by your local authorities. We would prepare in advance all relevant docs for you. Having collected all relevant information and documents, we will file to authorities in charge and follow up the processing. During the process we will stay in contact with you and authorities in charge to clear potential problems. Processing such an application usually takes 4-6 weeks.

How much fees do we charge?

Our fees are 100% performance based: We charge 15% of your actaully refunded amount. No refund for you means no fees for us. Thus no financial risk for you.

Example: You get a refund of EUR 10.000.Our fees will be 15% of EUR 10.000= EUR 1.500.

The fees mentioned above are final fees and there are no hidden costs like VAT or postal charges.

Why should I choose a German accountant firm to claim my contributions back?

Because our office is a specialised expert in this matter. You want to claim back German contributions from German authorites. We claimed back German pension contributions for many dozens of Non-EU cititzens. We know from the start which documents and info are required and how to get the maximum refund in the shortest time possible. You might find competitors that offer these services for dozens of different countries. Those competitors are ususally intermediary agents that only take a commission and then pass the case to a German accountant firm like ours. This means time-consuming and inefficient communication with several parties involved. To save time and money, we recommend to you to mandate directly a German expert like our accounting firm.

Contact us any time by email or phone to discuss and analyze your case.

Shall we also check if you qualify for an income tax refund? Let us know.