Tax Law and Financial Advice

This chapter helps you do one thing: work out who is allowed to help you with tax and financial advice in Germany, how to choose that person, and what they are permitted to charge. It does not explain German tax law. That subject has its own chapters in this guide, and they are linked where they belong.

There is one fact that makes this chapter different from every other chapter in the Finding a Lawyer section, and it is worth stating before anything else. In Germany, giving tax advice is a legally reserved activity, and it is not reserved to lawyers. It has its own statute, the Steuerberatungsgesetz (StBerG), its own profession, its own chambers and its own fee ordinance. A Rechtsanwalt, the German lawyer, is one of several professions permitted to do this work, and for most everyday tax questions a Rechtsanwalt is not the person you want.

The practical consequence catches almost every newcomer. The person you are looking for, the one you would call an accountant at home, largely does not exist here as a service you can buy. Understanding why saves you time, money and a real legal risk.

Why the word accountant does not translate

In English-speaking countries an accountant is a broad, flexible role. The same person may keep your books, prepare your return, tell you whether to incorporate and suggest how to structure a share sale. Germany splits that bundle in two, and puts a statute down the middle.

Paragraph 2(1) of the Steuerberatungsgesetz says that Hilfeleistung in Steuersachen, help in tax matters, may be provided geschäftsmäßig, meaning on a regular or business-like basis, only by persons and associations who are authorised to do it. The provision then closes the obvious escape routes: it applies without distinction to full-time and part-time work, and to paid and unpaid work alike. Advising a colleague on their tax return as a regular favour is not exempt because no money changed hands. Paragraph 2(2) defines the reserved activity broadly: it is any activity in another person’s affairs, within the Act’s scope, as soon as it requires a rechtliche Prüfung des Einzelfalls, a legal assessment of the individual case.

Paragraph 5(1) is the prohibition itself. Anyone not named in the Act’s authorising provisions may not provide business-like help in tax matters, and the statute spells out the point in case it was missed: in particular, they may not give business-like advice in tax matters. This is the sentence that removes the general-purpose accountant from the German market.

What remains is a bookkeeper, a Buchhalter, and paragraph 6 defines that role with unusual precision. The prohibition does not catch the carrying out of mechanical operations in keeping books and records, but the statute immediately carves two things back out: assigning entries to accounts, das Kontieren von Belegen, and issuing booking instructions, das Erteilen von Buchungsanweisungen, are not mechanical and are not permitted. Paragraph 6 also permits the booking of ongoing business transactions, ongoing payroll and the preparation of Lohnsteuer-Anmeldungen, the employer’s monthly wage tax filings, where that work is done responsibly by someone who has passed a commercial training qualification, or holds equivalent education, and has since worked in bookkeeping for at least three years at a minimum of sixteen hours a week.

Read those together and the line becomes clear. A Buchhalter may record what happened. A Buchhalter may not tell you what it means. If you ask your bookkeeper whether an expense is deductible, you are asking for something they are not allowed to answer, and a careful one will decline.

What happens when someone advises you anyway

People do break this rule, and foreigners are a common target, because a newcomer cannot tell a regulated profession from a confident person with a website. It helps to know what the law actually does about it, because the honest answer is more useful than a vague warning.

The Act does not make unauthorised advice a crime in itself. Under paragraph 7, the Finanzbehörde, the tax authority, may prohibit a person from providing help in tax matters, in particular where someone with a limited permission exceeds it. Paragraph 160 then makes it a regulatory offence, an Ordnungswidrigkeit, to contravene such an enforceable order, punishable with a fine of up to fifty thousand euros. So the fine follows the order rather than the first breach. Alongside that, paragraph 5(2) obliges the tax authorities and the chambers to report suspected breaches to the fining authority, and allows them to pass the facts to the competent Steuerberaterkammer so it can consider claims under the Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb, the unfair competition statute. Separately, using the protected titles Steuerberater, Rechtsanwalt or Wirtschaftsprüfer without being one is a criminal matter under paragraph 132a of the Strafgesetzbuch.

For you, though, the enforcement machinery is not the point. The point is what you do not get. An unauthorised adviser belongs to no chamber, so there is nobody to complain to. They carry no compulsory professional indemnity insurance, so if their advice costs you a five-figure sum there is likely nothing to recover. And the Finanzamt, the tax office, will hold you responsible for your return regardless of who filled it in. The risk transfers to you completely.

Who may legally give tax advice for a fee

Paragraph 3 of the Steuerberatungsgesetz sets out who has the unbeschränkte Befugnis, the unrestricted authority, to help in tax matters. The list is a closed one: Steuerberater, tax advisers; Steuerbevollmächtigte, a related and now historic tax representative title; Rechtsanwälte, lawyers; niedergelassene europäische Rechtsanwälte, established European lawyers practising here under their home title; Wirtschaftsprüfer, auditors; and vereidigte Buchprüfer, sworn auditors. Professional practice companies formed by these people are included on the same terms.

The Steuerberater is the profession built for this job. Entry runs through the Steuerberaterprüfung, a state examination administered under the supervision of the chambers, after a required period of practical experience, and admission is granted by a Steuerberaterkammer, which also supervises conduct and requires professional indemnity insurance. When Germans have a tax problem, this is who they call. It is the default, and for almost every question in this chapter’s territory it is the right default for you too.

A Wirtschaftsprüfer is an auditor whose centre of gravity is company accounts and statutory audit. They may advise on tax, and many do, but you would normally reach one through a business, not a personal return. A Rechtsanwalt may also advise on tax without any further qualification, though most do not hold themselves out for routine work. Where a lawyer becomes the right choice is a question of what the dispute is, and it is covered further down.

Beside the unrestricted list, paragraph 4 sets out a long list of actors with a beschränkte Befugnis, a restricted authority, each confined to a narrow slice. Notaries act within their notarial powers. Employers may help their own employees with wage tax matters and family benefit questions, which is why a large company’s payroll department may answer some questions and not others. Freight forwarders may help with import duties. And at number eleven sits the one that matters most to readers of this guide.

The Lohnsteuerhilfeverein, the cheapest route for most employees

A Lohnsteuerhilfeverein is a wage tax assistance association. Paragraph 13 of the Steuerberatungsgesetz describes it as a Selbsthilfeeinrichtung von Arbeitnehmern, a self-help institution of employees, which helps its own members within the limits of paragraph 4 number 11, and which needs official recognition, Anerkennung, before it may operate at all. It is mainstream, it is everywhere, and most foreigners in Germany have never heard of it. For an ordinary employed person it is usually the cheapest legitimate way to get a tax return done properly.

The economics are set by the statute. Paragraph 14(1) number 5 requires the association’s constitution to provide that no separate charge is made beyond the Mitgliedsbeitrag, the membership fee, for the tax help itself. You join, you pay the annual fee, and the work is covered. There is no hourly rate and no invoice at the end. Most associations scale that annual fee to your income, so a low earner pays little, but that scaling comes from each association’s own Beitragsordnung, its fee rules, rather than from the statute, so check the actual schedule of the association you are considering. Recognition also requires proof of professional indemnity insurance, so the protection you lose with an unauthorised adviser is present here.

The catch is who is allowed in, and paragraph 4 number 11 is strict about it. Your income must be of the permitted kinds: employment income, certain recurring payments, maintenance payments, and payouts from certain pension products. You must have no income at all from agriculture and forestry, from a trade or business, or from self-employed professional work, and you must make no VAT-liable turnover. There is a narrow relief here: income that is entirely tax-free under specific provisions of the Einkommensteuergesetz, such as the allowances for voluntary instructors and voluntary office holders, does not knock you out. Finally, your receipts from other categories of income must not exceed eighteen thousand euros, or thirty-six thousand euros if you are jointly assessed with a spouse. Note that this last test is measured in Einnahmen, gross receipts, not in net income after costs, and that losses are disregarded rather than netted off. Because these figures sit in the statute itself rather than in an annually indexed table, they are stable, but confirm them before you rely on them.

The scope of what the association may then do is limited too. The authority extends only to Einkommensteuer, income tax, and its Zuschlagsteuern, the surcharge taxes levied on top of it, which is where the Solidaritätszuschlag and Kirchensteuer sit. It also reaches family benefit matters, childcare costs, and household-related employment relief. It does not reach your VAT, your trade tax or your company. One further point is easy to miss and genuinely kind: the statute expressly allows a member who has become unemployed to continue being advised.

What this means in practice is blunt. If you are an employee with a salary, a savings account and perhaps a rented-out flat inside the receipts limit, a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein is very likely your best value. If you freelance at all, even slightly, even as a Kleinunternehmer under the small business rule, you are outside paragraph 4 number 11 and the association must turn you away. It is not being unhelpful; it is not permitted. Our chapter on freelancing and self-employment in Germany covers what that status does to your obligations. To find a recognised association, the two national umbrella bodies are the Vereinigte Lohnsteuerhilfe and the Bundesverband Lohnsteuerhilfevereine.

What a Steuerberater is allowed to charge you

Steuerberater fees are not invented by the adviser. They are set by an ordinance, the Steuerberatervergütungsverordnung, usually shortened to StBVV. If you have read our chapter on legal services for expats, the shape will be familiar, because it works like the RVG that governs lawyers’ fees. The logic is the same and so is the initial shock: the price mostly depends on the size of the matter, not on the hours spent.

Paragraph 10 of the StBVV sets out the mechanism. Value-based fees are read off tables annexed to the ordinance, and they are calculated on the value of the matter the adviser is working on, the Gegenstandswert, which unless otherwise provided means the Wert des Interesses, the value of your interest in the outcome. The ordinance carries several tables for different work: a Beratungstabelle for advice, an Abschlusstabelle for financial statements, a Buchführungstabelle for bookkeeping and a further table for agricultural work. The tables are linked from the ordinance itself and are not reproduced here, because they change with each amendment and a number in a guide chapter rots.

The second variable is the fraction. For most items the ordinance does not fix one price but a range expressed in tenths of the full table fee, and the adviser sets a figure inside that range according to the scope, difficulty and responsibility of the work. Paragraph 21, which covers advice and information, is a good example: it runs from one tenth to ten tenths of the Beratungstabelle. So when a bill arrives, two questions explain almost all of it. Which value was used, and which fraction was applied? Those are fair questions and a professional will answer them.

Paragraph 21 also contains the number most readers want. Where the work is limited to a first consultation and you are a Verbraucher, a consumer acting outside a trade or profession, an adviser you are approaching for the first time may demand no more than one hundred and ninety euros for it. That is a statutory ceiling on the exploratory conversation, and it is the same figure that caps a lawyer’s first consultation under the RVG. The fee is also credited against a later fee for related work, so an initial meeting that turns into a mandate is not charged twice.

You can agree something different, but the ordinance controls how. Paragraph 4 requires a Vergütungsvereinbarung, a fee agreement, to be in Textform, to be labelled as a fee agreement, to be clearly set apart from other agreements and specifically not to be buried inside the power of attorney, and to state the type and scope of the work. If an agreed fee turns out to be unreasonably high, a court may reduce it down to the ordinance level. And the adviser is obliged to tell you, in Textform, that a higher or a lower fee than the statutory one can be agreed.

That last word deserves attention, because it is a real difference from lawyers. Paragraph 4a permits a fee lower than the statutory one to be agreed in out-of-court matters, provided it remains in reasonable proportion to the adviser’s work, responsibility and liability risk. A lawyer generally may not undercut the RVG at all. So a Steuerberater’s out-of-court fee is negotiable in a way a lawyer’s is not, and asking is neither rude nor futile. Once you move into an objection or into court, paragraph 40 switches the basis: the RVG then applies to the Steuerberater’s fee as well.

When you need a Rechtsanwalt instead

Because this is the Finding a Lawyer section, the honest answer has to include the cases where the answer is not a lawyer. There is no lawyer monopoly over tax disputes in Germany, and being told otherwise costs people money.

Start with the Einspruch, the objection. Under paragraph 347 of the Abgabenordnung, the tax code, the Einspruch is the remedy against a Verwaltungsakt in tax matters, which includes your Steuerbescheid, the assessment notice. Paragraph 355 sets the deadline at one month from the notice being served. This is the single hardest date in German tax life. Miss it and the assessment becomes bestandskräftig, final, and your arguments become irrelevant no matter how good they were. If a Steuerbescheid looks wrong, the clock is the emergency, not the argument. A Steuerberater can lodge and run the Einspruch for you; the fee ordinance assumes exactly that.

If the objection fails, the next step is the Finanzgericht, the tax court. Here too a lawyer is not required. Paragraph 62 of the Finanzgerichtsordnung says the parties may conduct the case themselves, and that they may be represented by a Rechtsanwalt, a Steuerberater, a Steuerbevollmächtigter, a Wirtschaftsprüfer or a vereidigter Buchprüfer. A Lohnsteuerhilfeverein may even represent its member, within the limits of its own restricted authority. Only at the Bundesfinanzhof, the federal tax court above it, is representation compulsory, and even there the same professions are all admitted. Choose a lawyer at this stage because you want a litigator, not because the law forces you.

Where the law does force the issue is criminal tax law. Paragraph 392 of the Abgabenordnung is the provision to know. A Steuerberater or Wirtschaftsprüfer may be chosen as your defence counsel only so far as the tax authority is conducting the criminal proceedings itself; beyond that, they may conduct the defence only jointly with a Rechtsanwalt. So the moment the matter leaves the tax office and reaches the public prosecutor, your Steuerberater cannot defend you alone. There is a second, quieter reason. Your Steuerberater prepared the filings that are now being examined and may end up being questioned about them. That is an uncomfortable position for both of you, and it is not the position a defence lawyer is in.

The credential to look for is the Fachanwalt für Steuerrecht, the specialist lawyer for tax law, a title awarded by the bar for demonstrated theoretical knowledge and case experience and maintained by compulsory annual training. Our chapter on legal services explains what a Fachanwalt title proves. Many practitioners in this field are dual-qualified as both Rechtsanwalt and Steuerberater, which is the combination you want when a matter might turn criminal.

Steuerhinterziehung and the Selbstanzeige

Steuerhinterziehung, tax evasion, is defined in paragraph 370 of the Abgabenordnung: giving the authorities incorrect or incomplete information about facts relevant to tax, or improperly leaving them in the dark, and thereby reducing tax or obtaining an unjustified advantage. It carries up to five years of imprisonment or a fine, and in especially serious cases, which include evasion on a large scale, six months to ten years. The attempt is punishable. It is worth saying plainly that this is not reserved for spectacular cases. Undeclared foreign accounts, undeclared rental income abroad and undeclared crypto disposals are the classic ways in which ordinary foreigners arrive here without meaning to.

German law offers a way back. Paragraph 371 provides for the Selbstanzeige, voluntary disclosure, which grants immunity from punishment. The word unforgiving is the right one. The correction must be complete for all offences of one type of tax, covering everything not yet time-barred and at minimum the last ten calendar years. A partial disclosure buys nothing. It is also blocked once certain events have happened: an audit order has been notified, criminal or fining proceedings have been opened and notified, an official has appeared for an audit or an inspection, or the offence has been discovered and you knew or had to reckon with it. It is blocked above twenty-five thousand euros of evaded tax per offence, and in especially serious cases. Immunity further requires paying the evaded tax and the interest within the deadline set.

Where it fails only because of the twenty-five thousand euro threshold or the serious-case rule, paragraph 398a offers a separate route: the prosecution is dropped if the tax and interest are paid together with an additional sum to the treasury, calculated as a percentage of the evaded tax that rises in steps with the amount involved. It is not immunity and it is not cheap, but it is a way out.

The reason this belongs in a chapter about choosing an adviser is simple. A Selbstanzeige is a signed confession that only protects you if it is perfect. Filed badly, incompletely or too late, it hands the authorities the case and gives you nothing back. This is not a form to fill in and not a thing to attempt from a template. It is the clearest case in this whole chapter for a specialist, and the specialist is a lawyer who does criminal tax work, ideally one who is also a Steuerberater. Our chapter on criminal defense lawyers covers what happens once proceedings are running.

Financial advice is a different trade with different rules

So far this has all been tax. The other half of this chapter’s title is financial advice, and it works in a completely different way, which is exactly why the two are so often confused to a newcomer’s cost.

Steuerberater is a protected title. Finanzberater, financial adviser, is not. Anyone may print it on a card. What is regulated is not the label but the activity, and the relevant statute is the Gewerbeordnung, the trade regulation act. Paragraph 34f governs the Finanzanlagenvermittler, the financial investment intermediary, who needs a permission from the competent authority to advise on or broker investment funds and similar products. Nothing in that provision stops them from being paid by the company whose product they sell.

Paragraph 34h governs a distinct animal, the Honorar-Finanzanlagenberater, the fee-based financial investment adviser, and the contrast is the whole point. This permission is for advising without receiving any inducement from a product provider and without being otherwise dependent on one. Such an adviser may not run an intermediary business at the same time, must base recommendations on a sufficient number of products actually available on the market, spread across types and providers and not confined to firms they are connected with, and may be paid only by you, the investor.

Read plainly, that is the difference between someone whose income depends on what you buy and someone whose income depends on what you pay them. Neither is dishonest by definition, but readers arriving from countries with fiduciary duties or fee-only advice traditions frequently assume the second and get the first. The question to ask in the first meeting is direct and entirely normal here: are you paid by commission or by fee, and under which permission do you operate? You can check the answer yourself, because permissions under both provisions are recorded in the public Vermittlerregister.

One boundary matters more than any other. A financial adviser of either kind is not on the paragraph 3 list of the Steuerberatungsgesetz. They may not give you tax advice. When an investment is recommended to you on the basis of its tax treatment, that recommendation is coming from someone not permitted to give it, and it is the moment to take the tax question to a Steuerberater. Our chapter on investment opportunities covers the investment side, including the traps that catch foreign residents specifically.

Getting tax and financial advice when money is tight

A widely repeated claim is that Germany’s legal aid for advice does not reach tax matters. That is not what the statute says, and the correct position is better news than the myth.

Beratungshilfe, advice assistance, is the state scheme that pays for advice, and for representation outside court where advice alone is not enough, for people on low incomes. Paragraph 2 of the Beratungshilfegesetz states that it is granted in all legal matters, with only criminal and regulatory offence matters limited to advice alone. Tax matters are legal matters. Paragraph 3 then settles it beyond argument by naming who may provide it: lawyers and chamber-registered legal advisers, and, within the scope of their own advisory authority, Steuerberater and Steuerbevollmächtigte, Wirtschaftsprüfer and vereidigte Buchprüfer. A Steuerberater can be your Beratungsperson under the scheme.

There is one limit in that statute which this audience should read carefully. Beratungshilfe is not granted in matters where the law of another state applies, so far as the facts show no connection to Germany. A purely domestic question from your home country, with nothing German about it, falls outside. A German tax question that happens to involve foreign income does not.

For court proceedings, Prozesskostenhilfe is the parallel scheme, and it reaches the tax courts: the fee ordinance expressly contemplates a Steuerberater assigned to you under it. Our chapter on legal aid and pro bono services explains the means test and the application procedure for both, and it is worth reading before you assume you do not qualify. That said, for an ordinary employee with an ordinary return, the Lohnsteuerhilfeverein is usually simpler and cheaper than any of this, and it involves no means test at all.

Cross-border cases where a generalist is not enough

Most German tax advisers are excellent at German tax and have never had a reason to learn anything else. For a foreign resident, that gap is precisely where the money is. There are three areas where a general practitioner is not sufficient, and where paying more for the right specialist is cheaper than paying less for the wrong one.

The first is double taxation. Germany has treaties with most countries that decide which state may tax what, and how the other state relieves the result. The mechanics reach into your German return and get the outcome wrong when they are handled casually. Our chapter on understanding German taxes covers how the system fits together, and our chapter on tax benefits and exemptions covers the reliefs. When you engage someone, ask directly whether they have handled cases involving your specific country.

The second is leaving. Germany operates an exit tax, the Wegzugsbesteuerung, which can treat certain holdings as sold on the day you move away and tax a gain you never realised in cash. It reaches further than most people expect. It is far cheaper to ask before you go than to discover it afterwards, and our chapter on investment opportunities sets out where the thresholds bite.

The third applies to a specific group with a specific problem. If you are a United States citizen or green card holder, you remain inside the American tax system while living here, your German accounts are reported under FATCA, and ordinary European funds are generally treated as PFICs under US rules, a category with punitive treatment. Most German advisers do not know this, and the standard German recommendation is close to the worst available answer for you. You need someone who genuinely handles both systems, and you should establish that in the first conversation rather than the third.

Underneath all of it sits a plain fact about dealing with the Finanzamt yourself. Paragraph 87 of the Abgabenordnung provides that the official language is German. If you submit documents in another language, the tax office may require an immediate translation, may require a certified one in justified cases, and may obtain one at your expense. More sharply: where your filing is meant to start a deadline for the authority, and it arrives in a foreign language, the clock does not start until the translation does. English will not carry you here, and this is a large part of why an adviser is worth the fee.

How to check that an adviser is real

Every authorised profession in this chapter is publicly verifiable, and checking takes about two minutes. Doing it once, before you hand over documents, is the cheapest protection available.

For a Steuerberater, the chambers maintain the official register, the amtliches Steuerberaterverzeichnis, which is the authoritative check on whether someone is admitted. The Bundessteuerberaterkammer is the federal chamber behind it, and the Deutscher Steuerberaterverband is the profession’s association. For a Lohnsteuerhilfeverein, recognition is a legal requirement, so confirm the association is recognised and use the umbrella bodies named above to find one. For anyone selling or advising on investments, use the Vermittlerregister and note which permission they hold. For a Rechtsanwalt, our chapter on legal services for expats sets out the official register and how to read a Fachanwalt title.

Then ask four questions before you engage. Which language will we work in, in writing as well as in meetings? Have you handled cases involving my home country? Who actually does the work, you or a member of staff? And can I have the fee arrangement in Textform before we start, stating the value and the fraction you intend to apply? A good adviser will find none of this offensive. An adviser who does has told you something useful.

Preparing before the first meeting

Advice priced on the value of the matter still rewards you for arriving organised, and the reward is larger than it looks: understanding what your own numbers are doing turns the meeting from an explanation into a decision. This is where our own tools may help, and a disclosure belongs here. Werkzeu.ge is built by Cryon UG, the company behind WeLiveIn.de.

The plain caveat first, because in this chapter it is not boilerplate. Werkzeu.ge is in beta until 30 November 2026 and its own terms say tools may be incomplete. Its tax tools use the official calculation formulas published by the Bundesministerium der Finanzen, and its terms state explicitly that they are not Steuerberatung. Given paragraphs 2 to 5 of the Steuerberatungsgesetz, that is not a disclaimer anyone chose to write. It is the law. A piece of software may compute; it may not assess your individual case. The tools also prepare only and never file: there is no connection to ELSTER or the Finanzamt, and submission always remains yours.

To understand the system before you discuss it, Steuersystem 101 explains the types of tax, the Steuerklassen and the deadlines, and it is free without an account. For the numbers themselves, the Einkommensteuer-Rechner computes income tax on the statutory tariff, and the Brutto-Netto-Rechner works out net pay with the social contributions broken out. Both are free without an account. Free tools carry advertising.

If you intend to file yourself and want to arrive at the portal prepared, the ELSTER-Vorbereitungsassistent builds a checklist of which annexes and documents your situation needs and when they are due, and the ELSTER-Fehlerdecoder translates the portal’s error codes into plain language. Both are in the Plus tier. The one built for this chapter’s exact question is the Steuerberater-Demystifizierer, which reads a Steuerberater invoice, explains the Gegenstandswert and the fraction applied, checks the figures against the StBVV for plausibility and gives a view on what you could reasonably do yourself. It is in the Pro tier. For what the tiers include, see the current pricing. None of these replaces a Steuerberater, and none of them is allowed to.

What to do next

Start by naming your situation honestly, because it decides everything else. If you are an employee whose income is a salary plus modest extras, join a recognised Lohnsteuerhilfeverein and stop there; it is the cheapest legitimate answer and it exists for exactly you. If you freelance, run a business, own property abroad or hold significant investments, you are outside that route by law and a Steuerberater is your baseline.

If a Steuerbescheid has arrived and looks wrong, check the date it was served before you do anything else. You have one month to lodge an Einspruch, and that deadline governs your options far more than the strength of your case does. If anything about your history involves undeclared income, stop, tell nobody informally, and speak to a lawyer who does criminal tax work before you correct anything, because a botched voluntary disclosure is worse than none.

Before you engage anyone, verify them in the official register, ask which language you will work in and whether they have handled your home country, and get the fee arrangement in Textform with the value and the fraction stated. Remember that a first consultation with a Steuerberater is capped at one hundred and ninety euros for a consumer, which makes an exploratory conversation an affordable way to find out whether you need more. If cost is the obstacle, read our chapter on legal aid and pro bono services before assuming you cannot afford advice, since Beratungshilfe does reach tax matters and a Steuerberater can provide it.

For the substance behind these decisions, our chapters on understanding German taxes, tax benefits and exemptions, and freelancing and self-employment cover the rules themselves, and legal services for expats is the entry point to the rest of this section.