Why should anyone have a Tax CMS?
Tax evasion is a crime in Germany and may be sentenced with up to 10 years of imprisonment. This also applies to private individuals acting on behalf of a company, e.g. as managing director or board member. Besides a D&O insurance a tax CMS may help to protect them in case something went wrong and they can prove they did not act deliberately and have implemented procedures to make sure the company complies with rules.
The German Federal Ministry of Finance says: “If the taxpayer has implemented an internal control system that includes the fulfilment of tax duties, it may indicate that there is neither deliberation nor reckless understatement of tax. For example in case the client has made a mistake the chances for getting away with negligence (which usually only result in a fine or even nothing) are much higher if he had implemented a tax compliance management system before.
Interesting information such as
- What is a Tax-CMS?
- Who needs a Tax-CMS?
- Basic elements of a Tax-CMS
- Audit of a Tax-CMS
- Benefits of a Tax-CMS
we have provided for you on an information page.
How can we help?
Benefitax can support you to set up your individual Tax CMS. We can either guide the responsible person in your company how to do it or, provided sufficient information and documents are provided, set it up for you.
In case we were not involved in the preparation we can act as auditors and issue an opinion, which you can use for branding. The audit scope may range from just appropriateness test as absolute minimum to a performance test, which is more intense and to be preferred.