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. . Germany - the taxman cometh

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    Compensation

    Like many here I suspect, I used a German Tax account who was fully aware of the money paid to me in Germany, of my service company in the UK and of the total contract amount.

    I was raided, because of their negligence . I have shown a UK law firm the letters I wrote and E mails sent asking our German Tax account on several occasions if we were paying the correct amount of German tax. Unfortunately, the UK lawyers have been stonewalled by the German tax accountant and I can not afford to pursue the compensation claim any further.
    Does any know if the German Tax account would also be liable to prosecution? Or in any way be made to bear some if not all the blame? It would seem a great injustice, that I am saddled with a criminal record, quarter of a million out of pocket and they have got clean away with it.
    Thus sadly I must end my pursuit of justice with Germany. I only hope we get back some of the double taxation from the UK.


    And, perhaps not is such forcefull or colorfulll language, I must agree with thoes that see the German authorities as being morraly if not wholly corupt. I would not advise doing business with Germany ever again. I do not trust them.
    Last edited by Dominic; 22 March 2010, 13:56.

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      Originally posted by Dominic View Post
      I only hope we get back some of the double taxation from the UK.
      Good luck with that but I think you will find Gordon Brownstuff has spent it all.

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        Originally posted by CodeKid View Post
        A foreign tax authority eg F-amt cannot access any details of your non-German accounts (except - as pointed out by earlier post - via a raid where you carelessely left details for them to collect). Even if they know the bank name, account, SWIFT code etc
        Depends on the agreement.. the framework is called the OECD agreement on information sharing for Tax Purposes. Which allows countries to get information under certain conditions.

        www.oecd.org/dataoecd/24/63/39327984.pdf

        Btw, I moved back to the UK and I'm thinking of selling my German limited which is fully compliant and has a tax credit of around 20K. Anyone interested can PM, even if just to buy me a beer and sap my knowledge on German bureaucracy ;-)

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          Originally posted by TiroFijo View Post
          Hang on here, how can your german accountant know about your split income as albany would have paid it into an offshore bank thus not even coming into germany. Your german accountant would have only seen your money that you would have declared and brought into germany. I think either you or your german accountant is having a laugh. it's not like Albany were raided by the crowts and got your name and invoice details from them. So do tell how they could know about the dosh that you squirreled away and then chose to declare to the hmrc.
          Ah, also the problem with this is the prisoners dilemma, if they catch a few that did income splitting and they fess up to make a deal with the finanzamt, they will probably screw the rest.

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            Crikey, that sounds really bad.
            Last edited by Magic; 10 April 2010, 14:15.

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              Calm Before the Storm

              Its been really quiet on the forum. Is this the calm before the storm?

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                Dunno, but it would be interesting to know... has anyone managed to get back money from HMRC from paying tax in the wrong country?

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                  Originally posted by aalvarez View Post
                  Dunno, but it would be interesting to know... has anyone managed to get back money from HMRC from paying tax in the wrong country?
                  Im working on it. Fingures crossed and all that. If it happens I will tell you how I got on. Basically we a re doing a correction to the P&L for the last 6 years, as the money I (and any sane iteligent lifeform) thought belonged to my company was in fact mine (according to the insanity of the Germans). Therefore our UK taxes have been over paid.

                  However, the Germans took 10 years worth of taxes and 10 years of interest on them. If successful I can only get back 6 years and maybe some interest.

                  I will see what happens.

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                    Originally posted by gremlin View Post
                    Its been really quiet on the forum. Is this the calm before the storm?
                    Yes, It's indeed.

                    Currently raids are mostly over, f-amt are working on the files&info gathered, since they have a huge number of cases, most likely close to 1000 national wide, the process is going a bit slow.

                    The cases are either being settled down (meaning you are bendover and pay the price in exchange of minimum degree of criminal charges filed) or sent to the court.

                    So far I heard only one case in the court came to a verdict, other 20 or so are still in proceedings.

                    The guy was found guilty and charged a huge sum. This guy was used ITP (a tax shelter of of PSB) and ITP did not participated into the court sessions despite they called as witness or something like that.. So the guy left cold in the court, no support from ITP or whatever they call themselves now..

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                      Not sure where you get your info from

                      I know of at least six new raids in Munich alone in the last few weeks - and I would estimate the number of cases as more like tens of thousands nationwide. Lesson to be learned: don't come to Germany as a contractor. Whatever you do to set yourself up ( uk limited, brolly, freelancer declaring all income in Germany) you can and will get screwed over. If you are caught up in this mess and haven't had a knock at your door consult a german lawyer before it is too late.

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