Financial service providers face a number of challenges owing to circumstances such as growing regulatory requirements, constant changes to national and international tax law and issues relating to digitalization. One of the contributing factors to this rapidly evolving environment concerns efforts to reduce the harmful incentives for cross-border financial flows by coordinating different tax regimes.

Our financial services tax team consists of lawyers, certified tax consultants and bankers with the requisite knowledge of the relevant industries and markets. This team, along with specialists in other roles with a focus on the financial services industry, is on hand to support you as part of our comprehensive interdisciplinary client care package.

With our international network and local financial services teams, we are also able to advise on matters relating to foreign tax law, providing tax consulting services tailored to our clients’ individual needs.

Geared to our clients from the banking and financial services industry, our expert team offers industry-specific solutions in the banking, leasing, capital market and investment management environment. In addition to ongoing tax consultancy, our services also include project-specific advice, in particular:

• Assistance when preparing corporate tax declarations and tax returns
• Assistance with external tax audits
• Assistance with judicial and extrajudicial appeal proceedings
• Assistance with matters relating to the tax issues of a permanent establishment
• Tax advice relating to product taxation issues
• Tax advice relating to tax compliance management systems
• Tax advice on restructuring, start-ups, etc.
• Tax advice relating to investment tax matters

Supported by our specialists, this range of services is supplemented by the fields of strategic tax optimisation through cross-border tax planning and transfer pricing management (International Tax Consulting), consultancy on VAT optimisation and the reduction of customs duties Value Added Tax) as well as income tax and expatriate tax consultancy (Income Tax/Expatriate Tax).

With our international network, we are also in a position to handle foreign issues at the highest level, responding to the individual needs of our clients. Dealing with FATCA rules or the Qualified Intermediary Program (QI Program) of the US authorities as well as the efforts in the field of financial transaction tax and the automatic tax data exchange  are just a few examples of the many issues we address in this area.

Legal Advice

Our cooperation partner BDO Legal Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH supports banks and financial service providers with comprehensive legal advice on a wide range of supervisory topics, both on individual questions as well as complex transaction projects with a regulatory focus.

The Financial Services team of BDO Legal Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH advises private banks both domestically and abroad, branch offices of foreign institutions, and subsidiaries of foreign banks, as well as foreign investors on market entry into Germany/the EU and manages the necessary processes with the ECB and BaFin.

In addition to issues from the narrow regulatory context, such as licensing or ownership control procedures, the consultation covers corporate law (Corporate Governance, remuneration systems, etc.) and commercial topics closely linked to regulatory aspects. This also includes questions of outsourcing of business processes and services, as well as capital market law (especially stock exchange listing of companies, obligations of listed companies).