What it’s like to be a tax advisor in Germany

Accountable makes all kinds of tax chores so much easier. But when you do get stuck, we’ve got approachable tax consultants like Andreas Reichert on hand, ready to help you with the nitty-gritty. We asked Andreas what drew him to Accountable and what he finds useful about the app.

Hi Andreas. How did you become a tax consultant?

I was studying economics at the end of the 1990s. I was a student from 1995 to 2000. At the beginning I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and if you studied economics, you could do everything. So first I worked for a tax advisor, in a bigger company, and I saw that it was something I could easily do in the future. So I decided to become a tax advisor myself.

After my studies I went to work for KPMG, and three years later I got my tax advisor certification.

Are you self employed now?

Yes. From 2003 I was self employed for the first time. I was working as a part-time freelancer, so most of the time, I had an employer – one of the big companies – and of course I also had some of the smaller clients, where I worked with both employed and self-employed people.

After a while I changed to work for a programming company. We were programming tax software to help customers prepare their tax returns on their own. That was interesting, and then I moved to more project management work within the tax economy. Then, at the beginning of last year, I decided to become a ‘regular’ tax advisor.

So you know what it’s like, from being self-employed to working with tax software.

Yes, and I did it for a very long time, so I’ve probably had many of the same experiences as people becoming self-employed now.

What do you like about your job?

I meet a lot of interesting people. Right now it’s a lot of different types of professionals. Some of them are artists, and some of them are working with more technical subjects. When you prepare a tax return or bookkeeping for someone, you get to see the details of their lives, and this is quite interesting.

If you look behind the receipts then you understand what they are doing, what their issues are and how you can help them.

When did you first hear about Accountable?

I met Tino [Keller, Managing Director & Founder of Accountable Germany] at the end of last year. So I was with Accountable when it launched in Germany.

I like working with IT – and many tax advisors don’t. An ex-colleague gave me the contact and I got on well with Tino so we started to work together and I’m supporting the growth of Accountable ever since.

How do you like working with the app?

I find it very handy and easy to use. I can see myself confidently doing my tax return with the app, if I would be a freelancer without a tax advisor.

I come in when users want a tax advisor who does the taxes for them. Customers get the export file for their tax return from the app and then forward the file to me and that’s it. Or I get their permission to validate their bookkeeping directly in their Accountable account. For me, the process is very simple and straightforward. It saves us all a lot of time.

What makes Accountable particularly useful?

The app prevents a lot of mistakes and helps you to select the right thing, even when you don’t know a lot about taxes yourself.

For example, when it comes to expenses, it can be hard to select the right VAT rate. For German natives and non-German speaker alike, it’s not obvious why certain things have a 0% VAT rate and other are taxed at 19%. The app helps by automatically selecting the right rate for the expense category you select.

Also when it comes to invoicing… Let’s say you have a client in Spain but you’re not familiar with the Reverse Charge regime. It can be very confusing but the Accountable app helps you to create a legally correct invoice for this case automatically. I think that’s probably the best thing the app can do.

➡️ Wether you work with a tax advisor or by yourself, Accountable covers all your tax obligations you face as a freelancer in Germany! Check out the free app.