Tax field audit – what can I expect?
Not meeting disclosure and cooperation obligations can generally lead to penalty payments, surcharges for the tax payer. It can also give the tax authorities the right to estimate the income, which is most often used in favor of the authorities. Furthermore, some employees must be delegated as contact persons, space must be provided and the operations of the company are disturbed. It is not possible to say beforehand, how long the audit will take, whether specialized tax auditors will be called in, whether the audit will be adjourned and criminal proceedings for tax fraud and other tax offenses will be initiated.
It is a fact that training and recruitment of most of the tax inspectors in Germany are quite pro-fiscal and the career of a tax inspector also depends on how much additional taxes they can collect. It is therefore not surprising that it is not just about fair taxation, but mainly about additional revenues. Some questions of the tax auditor can only be comprehended in retrospect and one realizes that the information which was provided upfront is suddenly turned upside down and construed for the benefit of the tax authorities.
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Read here, how tax field auditors proceed.