Cooperation with tax advisers

Complementary legal support for complex tax-related matters

Many tax-relat­ed mat­ters can­not be resolved through tax analy­sis and cal­cu­la­tions alone. As soon as cor­po­rate struc­tures, lia­bil­i­ty issues or inter­na­tion­al ele­ments come into play, addi­tion­al legal review becomes necessary.

I am often involved when tax advis­ers require com­ple­men­tary legal sup­port or a more in-depth cor­po­rate law review for tax-dri­ven structures.

In many cas­es, coop­er­a­tion con­cerns cor­po­rate mea­sures with sig­nif­i­cant tax impli­ca­tions, as described in the sec­tion Tax-Dri­ven Cor­po­rate Struc­tures.

Complementary role – not competition

I do not see my role as com­pet­ing with tax advis­ers. On the con­trary, close coop­er­a­tion between tax and legal advice is often essen­tial for achiev­ing sus­tain­able results. This divi­sion of respon­si­bil­i­ties has proven effec­tive in practice.

While tax advis­ers focus on tax analy­sis and cal­cu­la­tions, my role lies in legal sup­port, in par­tic­u­lar with regard to:

• Legal sup­port dur­ing tax audits
• Legal dis­putes
• tax-dri­ven cor­po­rate structures
• legal imple­men­ta­tion of tax concepts
• lia­bil­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty issues
• inter­faces between tax law and cor­po­rate law
• inter­na­tion­al or cross-bor­der situations

In dis­putes with tax author­i­ties, pure­ly tax-based argu­ments may not always be suf­fi­cient. A more detailed dis­cus­sion is pro­vid­ed in the arti­cle When Tax Advis­ers Need Legal Sup­port.

Typical situations of cooperation

Coop­er­a­tion with tax advis­ers fre­quent­ly aris­es in sit­u­a­tions such as:

• Restruc­tur­ing, Trans­for­ma­tions and Reor­gan­i­sa­tions of Companies
• changes in shareholding
• tax-dri­ven amend­ments to share­hold­er agreements
• cross-bor­der cor­po­rate or invest­ment structures
• sit­u­a­tions where tax opti­mi­sa­tion is legal­ly constrained

In these cas­es, I assist in iden­ti­fy­ing legal risks at an ear­ly stage and devel­op­ing legal­ly sound structures.

Careful legal review instead of standardised solutions

Tax-dri­ven struc­tures can­not be legal­ly secured through stan­dard solu­tions. Dif­fer­ences in facts, objec­tives and legal frame­works require an indi­vid­ual and struc­tured approach.

My work is there­fore focused on in-depth legal analy­sis and close coor­di­na­tion with tax advis­ers, with the aim of achiev­ing solu­tions that are both tax-effi­cient and legal­ly robust.

Engagement models

Depend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion, I am engaged either direct­ly by the client or through the tax advis­er. Both mod­els are pos­si­ble and are coor­di­nat­ed transparently.

Clear allo­ca­tion of roles and open com­mu­ni­ca­tion are essen­tial in order to avoid dupli­ca­tion of work and to ensure effi­cient cooperation.

Law firm office in Frankfurt – international cooperation

My law firm is based in Frank­furt am Main. The loca­tion stands for close ties to eco­nom­ic and busi­ness issues.

Coop­er­a­tion with tax advi­sors and clients takes place reg­u­lar­ly nation­wide and internationally.

Cas­es requir­ing only a brief legal check with­out in-depth review are gen­er­al­ly not suitable.

Initial consultation

I would be pleased to dis­cuss whether addi­tion­al legal input may be appro­pri­ate in your spe­cif­ic case. → Con­tact