Tax consultant: What does a tax consultant do? Tasks, accounting, tax return, save taxes

Tax consultant tasks – Do I have to hire a tax consultant? What tasks does a tax consultant perform? How much does a tax consultant cost? Here you will find the answers to your questions and much more information about tax advisors in your area, finding a tax advisor, costs, tasks, financial accounting, annual financial statements and taxes in general – but let’s start at the beginning. This guide will give you important tips if you want to start a business or you want to change a bad tax accountant. That’s what tax consultants do! Tax advisors all over Germany: Tax advisors near you.

Tax advice simply explained: 7 areas

The tasks of the tax advisor differ depending on which tasks you take on yourself. The main tasks of the tax advisor are bookkeeping, financial accounting, accounting of wages and salaries, the annual financial statements and of course the general advice on the subject of taxes and tax optimization.

If you are interested in the processes, the individual areas of responsibility, then you are in the right place. Learn about the risks of hiring a tax advisor, as well as 3 tips to find a good, really good tax advisor. After that, we will give you deep insights into the daily cooperation with your tax advisor.

7 typical tasks of tax consultants in companies:

  1. Advice on tax preparation and structuring
  2. Bookkeeping and financial accounting
  3. Payroll accounting and payroll
  4. Profit and Loss Account (EÜR)
  5. Tax returns (much more on this later)
  6. Audits of tax assessments
  7. Representation vis-à-vis tax office and court

Source: Lukinski.de, tax consultant for companies

Why is it so important to find a good, reputable tax accountant?

Every euro that is not spent on taxes can be reinvested and generates further returns (profits)

That means if you pay too much tax, your money is gone. You can’t use it for new ideas and projects, which in turn bring you more profits and wealth. That’s why a good tax advisor is so important for your wealth creation.

Tasks of the tax consultant: tax returns, wages & Co.

According to Lukinski, the 4 central tasks consist of these areas in simplified form:

  1. Tax returns (monthly filings and annual evaluations)
  2. Wages for employees
  3. Balance sheets (annual financial statements)
  4. Tax structuring (set-up and optimisation)

Consulting: foundation, day-to-day business and development

The most important, especially for founders, is the tax advice and design. Taxes are not only a topic for large companies and corporations. It already starts with the managing director’s salary and tax allowances. In the growth process there are also changes in the legal form of the company (list external). If you look at a possible process, this could include, for example, the following stages that you go through step by step as a self-employed person.

Evolution a company (exemplary):

  • Sole proprietorship
  • Entrepreneurial company (UG haftungsbeschränkt)
  • Limited liability company (GmbH)
  • Stock corporation (AG)
  • Holding (with subsidiaries)

Tax advice therefore begins even before the company is founded. It continues with simple, initial aspects such as your managing director’s salary and goes on to the change of the individual legal forms of companies.

Processing of tax matters

Consultations on tax structuring, concept creation for tax avoidance, that is of course not the daily routine in the cooperation. The daily cooperation with your tax advisor is mainly about the processing of tax matters, from payroll accounting, bookkeeping and preparation of tax returns, to special requests. A list of key points is worth a thousand words, so here is a summary of what the “day-to-day work” is about, the tasks of the tax advisor.

Tax consultant tasks in detail:

  • Bookkeeping; this includes setting up bookkeeping, creating a chart of accounts, bookkeeping itself, account assignment of documents).
  • Payroll accounting
  • Tax returns; this includes wage tax, capital gains tax and turnover tax advance returns
  • Preparation of tax returns; these include income, corporate, trade, sales, gift and inheritance tax returns.
  • Preparation of financial statements; this includes the income statement (EÜR), opening balance sheet, annual financial statements, interim financial statements, liquidation balance sheet and explanatory reports
  • … and special requests

For the sake of completeness, tax advisors naturally help not only in setting up or setting up the business, but also in winding it up, i.e. insolvency, should something go wrong.

Do I need to hire a tax advisor?

As a company and self-employed person, you are not obliged to hire a tax advisor.

However, if you do not have a sound education yourself or the risks are too great, for example because you are not a small business (with “only” 5,000, 7,000 or 10,000 turnover per year), then you should definitely rely on the support of a tax consultant. The higher the turnover, the greater the risk of making mistakes. After all, in your company you are not only responsible for yourself personally, but also for your employees. They rely on you, as well as on regular salary payments.

The perfect segue to your duties!

Even if you have hired a tax advisor, it is worthwhile to take over certain tasks yourself. Depending on how many tasks you take over in your company yourself (or through employees), you save costs with the tax advisor.

Whose work costs you more per hour: employees or accountants?

Some founders collect all receipts, then give them collected, but unsorted in the office. Already the first mistake, because so happens the assignment, to the individual account movements, by the tax adviser. With 100 receipts quickly a few extra hours, with all the queries.

Your tasks: Work with tax consultants = save money

Every hour that your tax consultant works for you, apart from the regular tasks, costs extra. If you send your documents (incoming invoices and outgoing invoices) unsorted, the tax advisor or an employee has to do virtually everything. Conversely: If you deliver everything sorted, allocated (document = account movement) and assigned, it minimizes the workload extremely.

If you write invoices in which, for example, your tax number is missing, your tax advisor has to point this out, you have to change everything, send it again. If you don’t collect your invoices sorted and chronologically, your tax advisor has to do the job, some receipts are unclear, again queries, time and costs. If you don’t use digital accounting yet, through tax software, receipts still have to be entered by hand. These are all factors that drive up the cost of your accountant.

So, in quick summary, what are your responsibilities when working with an accountant? Because:

Work with the tax consultant = save money

Very basically, there are 4 areas that you should work through cleanly.

Wages, registration, health insurance, etc.

Theoretically, the tax comes first, determined by the monthly accounting. But for us one thing is most important, your employees! Because only through good teamwork, you can achieve good results with your company. Therefore, for us first of all wages, health insurance and other liabilities that provide for a good and effective team.

PS: Good teamwork always means that you are a good motivator for your employees.

Central is the submission of wage data, always on the 15th of the month. In the middle of the month? Yes, exactly, because the payroll data must first be processed, often by external payroll offices, which in turn are commissioned by your tax advisor. This happens especially in smaller tax offices when the necessary personnel resources are not yet available.

This means that halfway through the month you send wages, fixed hours and probable hours to the tax advisor. If you have employees who do not have fixed monthly working hours, you must extrapolate the probable working time. These estimated times will then be offset against the actual working times (of the previous month) in the following month.

Caution, unaware cost trap! Health insurance

Health insurances are not part of the wages and especially company founders often only (!) calculate with the sum for wages and salaries instead of seeing the total costs that arise for employees.

Here’s a small example:

  • Salary (transfer): 1.500 €
  • Health insurance: 700 €
  • Costs for payroll accounting: 15 €
  • Central wage costs: € 2,225
  • Unconscious costs: + 32,6 %.

The gap between the €1,500 calculated in the mind and the €2,225 actually paid is a whole €725, or +32.6 per cent. Therefore, always remember that the cost of wages and salaries ultimately includes not only the actual payment to the employee, but also the health insurance and payroll costs, which are additional for each individual employee.

This calculation error increases with each individual employee. So, for example, if you hire 5 employees directly at the start of the company through an investment or a loan and do not keep an eye on the costs for health insurance and payroll accounting, you will have a monthly deficit of 3,575 euros in the calculation example. If you have a loan of 50,000 euros or an investment, hire 5 employees, it has consequences quickly. After a period of 6 months, the sudden, supposed loss is already 21,450 euros. Finances are the number 1 reason for the failure of companies.

This is where another statistic comes right into play, 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first 5 years. The most common reason is lack of funding and capitalization. Supposedly, because maybe it’s just the wrong calculation.

That’s why it’s always important: You have to take an interest in taxes and duties yourself.

Don’t leave the work (only) to your tax advisor!

Let’s recap wages, employees, and health insurance:

  • Submission of wage data by the 15th of the month
  • Submission of actual and estimated working times (depending on employee type)

Monthly taxes: sales tax, trade tax, etc.

From our long look at employees now to the point at hand, monthly taxes! As a business (except small business) you are obliged to charge VAT if the invoice recipient is in the country (business) and always if the customer is a private person.

The very most important thing for accounting and for accountants:

Each posting (transaction) gets an assignment (document)

Or in other words, for every receipt and withdrawal on your account, there is a receipt that provides proof of what the money was used for.

This monthly evaluation determines the amount of sales tax you have to pay to the tax office.

If your turnover is high enough, the tax office will ask you to pay business tax for the first time. The sales tax is a transitory item. The trade tax reduces your profit, the sales tax does not. Read more about the types of taxes in Germany here.

Once again summarized the most important tasks for you, in the preparation of accounting:

  • Each posting a document
  • Accounting almost 1 month together
  • Submission no later than the 10th of the following month (tax office, previously to tax advisor)

Annual taxes: annual accounts

At the end of the year, depending on the legal form and company structure, financial statements are sent to the tax office.

If you do not file your tax return yourself, the annual accounts will be prepared in full by your tax adviser.

Your annual accounts provide information about the financial situation of your company. The annual financial statement is mandatory for all types of companies and is also sent to the Federal Gazette. In this way, company balance sheets can be viewed by the public. This facilitates credit checks for other companies and gives the tax office an insight into the current situation.

At the end of the year, there are various declarations that need to be filed, depending on the legal form(s) and company construct. For the self-employed, this includes the income tax return or, in general, the VAT return. As I said, all these aspects are taken care of by your tax advisor.

The annual accounts must be submitted by 31 July at the latest. Unless you are assisted by a tax advisor, then the submission can be extended to 28/29 February of the following year.

Now before we get to the 3 tips to find a good tax accountant, first the risks and dangers of hiring the wrong tax accountant.

Compare tax accountants: Risk when hiring

You want to find a good accountant! Because you want to avoid risks and dangers, after all, it will cost you money if you hire the wrong firm for your accounting. Ultimately, also a reason why startups fail. Cost of additional processing, advice and service and of course losses, for example if tax benefits are not taken (quote above). In the article on Lukinski, 3 specific risk factors are described that usually only become apparent after years of working together. The 3 risks first at a glance.

Assign risks to the tax advisor:

  1. Intensive, regular cooperation; means commitment and time for tax consultant changes
  2. Amount of monthly and additional costs; money missing for reinvestment
  3. In the long term: lose money (pay too much tax, plus costs for tax advisor, lack of reinvestment) due to lack of qualitative / quantitative advice

Learn even more about 3 big risks in contracting here:

Find a tax advisor: 3 tips

In order to find a good tax advisor, there are in the article on Lukinski directly 3 practical tips with to the hand, for your search, for a good tax advisor in the proximity.

These 3 tips will help you find a tax accountant:

  1. Don’t click on the ad in the search results (go directly to page 2)
  2. Rating on online portals (more than 5 opinions)
  3. Experiences and recommendations from successful entrepreneurs

Avoid advertisements in search results and portals

For one, never click on the ads, because these search results do not come from quality. The ads are here solely because money is paid for it. Money that is spent on advertising, of course, must be taken again. Already the costs for the tax adviser rise, because marketing is expensive. Maybe it is also not the best tax office, after all, customers still need to be recruited. Word of mouth is not enough to acquire new customers through recommendations, that is, through satisfied customers.

Ratings with quality and quantity

Tip number 2 deals with the evaluation in online portals. Here you should pay particular attention to the fact that there are a relatively large number of opinions. Buy reviews is quite simple. For as little as $19, there are real reviews in search engines and on social networks. Therefore, you should on the one hand compare the number of reviews with other offices, on the other hand read the opinions or even read through. A simple “very good” could possibly be bought.

Tax consultant experiences of other successful entrepreneurs

Tip number 3 is the safest way, you ask experienced and successful entrepreneurs in your area who can give you good recommendations. Another advantage, you have a door opener to the firm. Because good tax accountants don’t wait for new clients, they have enough inquiries through referrals.

Here again, briefly summarized, the 3 tips from practice to find a good tax advisor:

  1. Don’t click on the ad in the search results (go directly to page 2)
  2. Rating on online portals (more than 5 opinions)
  3. Experiences and recommendations from successful entrepreneurs

Conclusion: Find and hire a tax consultant

That was our insight into the topic of finding and hiring a tax advisor. So remember, don’t leave the work (only) to your tax accountant! The more you understand and do, the less you pay for the tax advisor and the more money or profit you have left to reinvest.

You’ve learned a lot about working together, from monthly bookkeeping and wages, to your company’s financial statements. Also the 3 biggest risks and 3 tips so that you do not make mistakes when choosing a tax advisor.

You can find more on this topic in the source of the article on Luinski.de: Steuerberater.

Costs and billing

How much does a tax consultant cost per hour? How are the fees of the tax advisor calculated? How much should a tax accountant cost? And how much does a small business tax accountant cost? If you haven’t experienced tax accountants yet, here are official costs and rates for you, from the federal Chamber of Tax Advisors. Tip. Under the explanation of value fee you will find the cost table for 100.000, 200.000 and 500.000 Euro – that’s how much your tax advisor costs / earns!

Mistakes: 3 risks for your company

Hiring a tax accountant / mistakes – You want to find a good tax accountant! Because, you want to avoid risks and dangers, after all it will cost you cash if you hire the wrong firm for your accounting. Costs for additional processing, advice and service and of course losses, for example, if tax benefits are not taken (quote above). In the article on Lukinski, 3 specific risk factors are described that usually only become apparent after years of working together. The 3 risks first at a glance.

Tax consultant in the vicinity

Nearby Tax Accountants – Find a good tax accountant near you? We have searched the internet for you for days to find the best recommendations for tax consultants in your area: Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Munich, Stuttgart & Co. for your private tax return or income tax return or more complex accounting for companies, from monthly financial accounting to annual financial statements. Including addresses, telephone numbers and website.

  • Tax consultant in the vicinity