Germany...taxation, registering freelance, accountants please?

[PharmaContractor]

Hi All,

Appears I may have a contract coming up in Germany, so looking into the taxation issue over there and any other obligations I may have.

From the posts on CUK it appears that setting up as "Freiberufler" is the way to go. What steps do I take to get this under way? Just go the Finanzamt, and get your status as a Freelancer approved by them?

Also, any tips are appreciated - I have added some detail below

my brief circumstances:

- Looking to move (with family) to Germany (2 kids: 3, 5, non-working EU wife).
- Will not have a place in the UK (owned/rented) and sole income would be from one German client initially.
- Will be invoicing my first client direct (no agency) and also charge them VAT
- No other income from other sources globally
- Age 35 (wife: 39)
- Non religious
- I would be renting a house (12000euros/year) locally in Germany and also paying for schooling for my children (12,000/year) with maybe 1500euros/year for commuting.

Okay, I don't expect anyone to work out retentions for me, but if I'm correct, I can claim for expenses such as commuting etc?

If someone could recommend a German tax advisor who's got experience of expats that would be great.

Thanks,

PC

[PharmaContractor]

Okay, am a bit further with this one now and have posted other German-related questions on this other thread:

http://forums.contractoruk.com/accou...ml#post1222924

For the sake of future searches! But if anyone can still recommend a decent German accountant that would be great. Would prefer to speak to them b4 I land there.

[doodab]

I use expattax.de. I would happily recommend them. They will sort out of all the registrations for income tax, VAT and so on. Although you can also get the forms yourself I suspect they will be a challenge unless you have really good German language skills.

The only place I had to register myself was with the local Kreisveraltungsreferat (or something like that) which is where you register your residency, address and so on which is required by law (including for the Germans).

I can't really comment on what you can claim as expenses, it seems to be anything related to work so if you have a travelcard the % used for commuting, similar for mobile phone etc. As your wife isn't working one thing you will probably want to take advantage of is the ability to be taxed as a couple, basically this means they calculate the tax on half your joint income and double the calculated amount, which works in your favour because it's progressive. You also get a pretty generous tax free allowance for kids. This calculator might give you a better idea of what you will end up with.

[aalvarez]

I can do payrolls if you would like to get the money as a salary with standard deductions. Not as tax efficient as being a freelancer, but less risky than dealing with the finanzamt.