Your German VAT desk, without adding a German firm to your group
You keep the client and the relationship. We hold the German mandate and do the part that only a licensed German tax advisor (Steuerberater) may do: filing with the tax office (Finanzamt) and dealing with it on your client's behalf. Registration, ongoing returns, annual returns, correspondence and audits, at published prices.
Talk to usThree things worth knowing before you write.
What we do: German VAT registrations, the ongoing preliminary returns (Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung), the annual return (Jahreserklärung) and Finanzamt correspondence, for foreign companies. Who the client is: the engagement and the power of attorney come from your client, not from your firm, because that is what lets us act before the tax office. The invoice can come to you. What it costs: the published prices below, the same for everyone. We cannot pay a referral fee, and the reason is a legal one, set out further down.
The one thing that cannot be outsourced to software
Most firms that approach us already do the hard commercial parts well. They find the client, understand the flows, gather the data and keep the deadlines. What stops at the German border is narrower than it looks: in Germany, filing tax returns for someone else on a commercial basis is reserved to licensed professionals, and only a licensed tax advisor can be recorded as a company's representative before the Finanzamt and speak to it in that capacity.
That is the piece we supply. Not the client relationship, not the data collection, not the software. Just the German mandate and the professional standing behind it, so your client is properly represented and their returns are filed by someone entitled to file them.
What we take on
- German VAT registration. The questionnaire for tax registration (Fragebogen zur steuerlichen Erfassung), submission, and the follow-up correspondence until the tax number (Steuernummer) is issued. Current waiting times at the tax offices run to several weeks and are outside anyone's control.
- Ongoing returns. Monthly or quarterly preliminary VAT returns (Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung, UStVA), whichever frequency the tax office assigns, filed electronically.
- The annual return. The Umsatzsteuerjahreserklärung for each year we act.
- Past returns. Periods that were never filed, including where the tax office has issued estimated assessments (Schätzungsbescheide) in the meantime.
- Correspondence and audits. Routine correspondence is included in the ongoing fee. Substantive matters and audits (Umsatzsteuer-Sonderprüfung, Betriebsprüfung) are hourly.
- Deregistration. Quoted per case, because it varies far more than the filings do.
Published, and the same whoever the work comes through
| Service | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Registration and filings | €1,499 / year | For a client with no German VAT number yet. The registration itself, every preliminary return, the annual return, and routine tax office correspondence. |
| Filings only | €99 / month or €1,099 / year | Where the client already holds a German tax number and you are moving the compliance work. |
| Past returns | €99 per return | Per unfiled period. One late quarter is one return, not three months. |
| Hourly work | €200 / hour | Audits, substantive correspondence, and anything outside the routine cycle. Audits are not fixed-priced before we have seen the case. |
Fees are payable before the work starts. Where your firm is established in the EU and holds a valid VAT identification number, our invoices reach you under the reverse charge with no German VAT added.
Your client engages us. You can still receive the invoice.
This is the part most worth settling before a first case, because it cannot be arranged the other way round. The engagement and the power of attorney (Vollmacht) have to come from the end client, the company whose tax it is. That document is what allows us to be recorded as its representative and to correspond with the Finanzamt on its behalf. It has to be printed, signed by hand and returned as a scan, signed by someone who can legally bind the company. A typed signature is not accepted, because a German tax office has rejected one.
The invoice is a separate question and can be addressed to your firm. There is nothing unusual about a third party paying another company's fees, and it is the arrangement most firms prefer.
The mandate runs to your client, the money can run to you. We are appointed by the company whose tax it is, because that is what the Finanzamt requires. Nothing about that changes who owns the relationship, and nothing about it stops the invoice coming to your firm.
A German tax advisor may not give or receive any part of the fees, or any other benefit, in return for the referral of work, to a third party of any kind.
§ 9 SteuerberatungsgesetzWe mention it openly because firms ask, and because a prohibition is a better answer than a vague no. Our prices are published and identical whoever the work arrives through. If you want a margin on the work, you are free to charge your own client your own fee for what your firm does. What cannot happen is a share of ours flowing back to you for the introduction.
What we do not do
Worth reading before you plan around us, because these come up regularly.
- Other countries. We file German returns. Not Austrian, Italian, Spanish or Polish ones. France is in preparation and will be limited to clients established in the EU or in a country on the French exemption list, because France otherwise requires a fiscal representative and we do not act as one anywhere.
- Fiscal representation. We never take it on. It carries joint liability for the client's tax. Germany does not require one in any case, which is why a foreign company can register there in its own name.
- Customs declarations. Not ours. Your client's freight forwarder makes the entry. The German import VAT then flows into the German return, and that part is ours.
- Bookkeeping. We file from figures your client or your firm provides. We do not build the underlying accounts, and we will say so rather than quote for it.
- Personal liability proceedings. Where a matter has moved from the company's tax to a director's personal liability, that is usually a lawyer's work rather than a tax advisor's, and we will tell you when we think it has.
Send us a case
The fastest way to find out whether this works is one real client. Tell us where the company is established, what it does in Germany, and whether it already holds a German tax number. That is enough to confirm the route and the price before anyone commits.
Send us a case Written answers within one business day · or email [email protected]Common questions from firms
Yes, and it is the only structure that works. The engagement and the power of attorney come from the end client, because the power of attorney is what allows a German tax advisor to act before the Finanzamt for that company. It has to be signed by hand by someone who can bind it. The invoice can be addressed to your firm.
No, and we are not permitted to. § 9 of the German Tax Advisory Act (Steuerberatungsgesetz) prohibits a German tax advisor from giving or receiving any part of the fees, or any other benefit, for the referral of work, to a third party of any kind. Our prices are published and identical whoever the work comes through.
Germany. We do not file Austrian, Italian, Spanish or Polish returns. France is in preparation and will be limited to clients established in the EU or in a country on the French exemption list, because France otherwise requires a fiscal representative and we do not act as one.
Yes, hourly at €200. We do not fix a price for an audit before seeing the case, because the auditor sets the workload rather than we do. Where a matter turns on a director's personal liability rather than on the tax itself, that is usually a lawyer's work and we will say so rather than take the fee.
Several weeks, and it has been getting longer. The clock starts when the application is submitted, not when the client signs up, and what the tax office does with it after that is outside anyone's control. We would rather give you that number than a shorter one you would have to explain to your client later.
Vaytax is operated by FRADECO GmbH Steuerberatungsgesellschaft, a German tax advisory firm and a member of the Steuerberaterkammer Rheinland-Pfalz. The returns are prepared and filed in house. Nothing is subcontracted onwards.