What does a tax return at Zerberus cost?

The fees we charge for a tax return vary from case to case and are not fixed. After all, we only offer individual advice and correspondingly personalised services.

Unlike numerous – admittedly often quite good – software solutions, we do not declare your income to the tax office alone.

We advise you. We optimise. We defend you against the tax office. We are your hellhound. We are Zerberus.

our framework

Nevertheless, the Steuerberatervergütungsverordnung (Tax Consultant Remuneration Ordinance, “StBVV”) sets a framework for the amount and appropriateness of the costs for the tax advise we charge.

The StBVV specifies a range within which the costs for the tax consultant for individual services must be within. Within this corridor we determine the costs based on effort, difficulty and value of the subject matter. The respective range for the individual fee is designated by so-called tenths.

INCOME TAX RETURN

The most important factor influencing the cost of tax returns is time. We calculate with a starting hourly rate of 80.00 Euro/hour. If it gets more complicated, the mor experienced tax professionals have to take over. The hourly rate increases accordingly. At the same time, we also have to adhere to the legally regulated accounting technology of the StBVV.

SYSTEM OF THE STBVV

The starting point according to the StBVV is the object value (Gegenstandswert), in the case of an income tax return it is the sum of your income. This has the following three reasons, which the legislator had in mind:

1. The higher the value of the object, the higher the liability risks of the tax adviser
2. Social compensation: Those who earn less should still be able to afford a tax advisor and thus benefit from tax advantages
3. In many cases, the workload of the tax advisor increases with higher object values

However, the amount of work required does not always depend on the value of the object, but often on other factors as well. Therefore, there is also a corridor of minimum, average and maximum rates, the so-called tenths rates. The tax consultant can apply these depending on the complexity of the declaration. Zerberus sets these tenths rates in such a way that the costs for the tax return cover our time expenditure.

COMPLICATED? WE UNDERSTAND. so here is AN EXAMPLE

1. Simple tax return of an employee who earns EUR 50,000 gross / year and has no special or complex income-related expenses
   Tax return costs: about 250 euros plus VAT (minimum rate)
   When using digital processes or good prepared documents – no shoebox 🙂
2. a married couple where both partners earn EUR 50,000 gross / year and neither has any special or complex advertising costs
   Tax return costs: about EUR 360.00 plus VAT (minimum rate)
   When using digital processes or preparing the documents – no shoebox 🙂

Of course, you can also complete a simple income tax return yourself, so that you can also save the costs of a tax consultant. But as I said. We not only explain. We advise you and fight for you to get the refund you are entitled to. We promise.

Now you will certainly assume that a simple tax return is prepared faster than in 3 hours and 7 minutes (above mentioned minimum fee of 250 net divided by hourly rate 80 Euro results in 3 hours 7 minutes processing time).

The pure preparation will certainly be faster. However, experience has shown that below this minimum rate a production is no longer cost-covering for us. This is because there are other times involved in addition to the pure preparation: Meetings with the client for advice, recording of master data and powers of attorney at the beginning of the mandate, scanning of documents, sorting of client documents, queries and requests for documents from us, answering queries from the client, review of the declaration of a second employee (dual control principle), answering queries from the tax office…

Certainly, not all these points always occur together. But always the one or the other. Therefore the minimum rate is justified by our work.

STATUS: IT IS COMPLICATED

If it gets complicated, we feel really comfortable. If you have to deal with renting, double budgeting, higher and more complicated advertising costs or international issues, Zerberus is at your side.

Tax regulations are not easy to understand. In addition, it is usually also a matter of high refunds or additional payments.

Of course, we can no longer charge such declarations at the minimum rate. They are therefore more expensive than the above examples, as we have more time to process them. Here we increase our fee by gradually raising the tenths of a percent rates.

It is not possible to make a generally reliable statement about the amount of the fee in the case of more complex explanations, as it always depends on the complexity and the amount of work involved in the individual case.

However, we can promise you something: We always calculate our costs for your tax return fairly and transparently according to the standards mentioned here. We work efficiently and digitally to keep the bill as small as possible.

We offer you excellent advice and results.

So please feel free to contact us. We will prepare an individual offer for you – without any obligation.