Seconded National Experts
You work for a European institution and continue to receive pay from your German home administration.
A secondment to a European institution, in Brussels, in Luxembourg or at another place of employment, may affect your German tax return. We assist seconded national experts (SNE) with these questions. They are among the people in public service or at international institutions who receive pay from several sources and live in more than one country. For an initial enquiry, you can contact us at office@eu-treuhand.de.
We examine your particular circumstances using your documents and identify open points.
Examining pay and daily allowances separately
The return requires separate examination of pay from your home administration and the daily allowance from the institution. Whether the allowance remains tax-free depends on the certificate from your home administration and on the amount; we examine this in each case. For your flat at your place of secondment, the allocation of costs between work and private use needs to be established. We prepare the return and explain the questions that remain open.
What you will find with us
The particular tax issues of an SNE secondment form part of our work, including preparing your German tax return. We also represent your tax position before the tax office during the assessment process.
If the tax office disagrees with our assessment, we represent you in objection proceedings and before the German fiscal court under the agreed engagement. We agree with you which procedural steps the engagement covers.
You upload your documents to the appropriate DATEV application and approve the draft return there; which application is used for what is explained on the DATEV Online page (in German).
Changes during a secondment
Where spouses work at the same place of secondment under different statuses, we examine the consequences for your return. Parental leave or a change of home administration can also affect the calculation.
Moving your residence entirely to the state of your secondment requires a fresh examination of your German tax position.
If the tax office calculates differently from us, we assess whether an objection has prospects of success and what it would cost. Then, in agreement with you, we raise an objection against the assessment and the linked administrative acts.
Contact
First consultation
Send a brief description of your enquiry to office@eu-treuhand.de. An enquiry does not yet establish an engagement. We consider the question, and your designated contact will get back to you. For an appointment or a callback, we need your name and a telephone number. Outside telephone hours, an answering machine takes your message.
What we take on and what it costs is settled before we begin.
There is a separate page for officials and staff of the European Union. This page is also available in German. If you would like us to prepare your German tax return, you will find what we need and how it works on the page German tax return for Seconded National Experts.