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. . Germany - the taxman cometh

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    Systematic pillage of legal limited companies by the German and Norwegian authorities.

    I am going to keep it short. Most people with complaints here seem to automatically given in to the authorities denying their rights as owners of small limited companies to have their tax issues dealt with in a fair manner by the authority to which they truly belong and that is HMRC.

    If you go to the trouble of following up on the legal basis of corporations operating in foreign areas within the EU you will find that as long as you keep your records up to date in the UK, prepare your returns in the United Kingdom, have a functioning office there then every major EU ruling would support you.

    Living either in Germany or in Norway is not the most relevant fact.

    Having now gone through many reports on these forums I have come to believe that both of these governments, or at least their fiscal authorities, are purposely bullying small entities into agreeing, or rather giving up appealing, that they are solely liable for tax in their areas.

    I can personally report that there have been severe attempts towards me and my company almost forcing a collapse based on their, partially criminal, accusations and decisions.

    The system I believe works in Germany as follows. Whether it is exactly the same in Norway would need to be proven by other readers.

    First the Finanzamt accuse you of running a scam company and send, possibly ridiculously high, tax estimates.

    They know that you are basically forced to appeal via their very own system. There will probably never be any suggestion that contact is made with HMRC as one would expect where two countries have a dual tax agreement. In fact any suggestion of making contact will be ignored. Not rejected, not mentioned. Nothing.

    Your appeal, if you dare, will be rebuffed with standard German laws which actually say nothing other than you will be taxed where your company is run from. Any suggestion by you that this is actually the UK will be either ignored or you will be told it is not significant because they believe you are running your business from their territory.

    So your appeal will be rejected with the statement that you can appeal at the nearest (expensive) Financial Court.

    Financial courts start getting expensive. So if you have not been in the country too long or your profits were not enough to warrant the fight you will probably give up. I found that even contesting one year cost me about four thousand Euros up front.

    Financial Courts in Germany, even though they will claim otherwise, are about as impartial as a man you have just kicked in the teeth. Ask any German lawyer and you will be told: steer clear of the financial courts.

    I was laughed at, really out loud, when I asked the judge in our case whether International Agreements or EU laws applied to my companies structure. His answer: I don't care about international laws or the Eu Rulings, I do what the FH [Finanzhof] tell me. And then he laughed out loud and turned to his gallery of co-judges.

    So your next chance if you lose in the Financial Courts is to appeal to the next higher level which I believe gets truly expensive.

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