Expertise
Family businesses & owner-managed companies
In a family business, operations, wealth and personal goals cannot be separated. We advise on them as a whole – thought through for tax and built to carry across generations.
Where company and family belong together.
A decision in the company affects the family, and a decision in the family affects the company. Since 2002, this interplay of company, wealth and family has been the focus of our work in the greater Munich area.
Our services for family businesses & owner-managed companies.
Ongoing tax and business advisory
The foundation of all reliable advice is a clean, current and meaningful set of numbers.
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We take on the complete ongoing tax and business support of your company – delivered on time and prepared so that you as the owner always know where your company stands. Out of this continuity grows the understanding that makes all further structuring possible in the first place.
- Annual financial statements under German commercial law (HGB) as well as cash-basis accounts (sec. 4 (3) German Income Tax Act) – depending on your company's legal form and size
- Tax balance sheets, electronic filing (E-Bilanz) and all corporate tax returns (corporate income, trade and value-added tax)
- Separate and uniform profit determination filings for partnerships, including supplementary and special balance sheets of the partners
- Ongoing bookkeeping with digital document flow, monthly management reports (BWA) and individual reporting
- Interim evaluations and target-actual comparisons as a basis for entrepreneurial decisions
- Review of tax assessments, deadline monitoring and correspondence with the tax authorities
- Personal annual review meeting with concrete recommendations for the following year
The shareholder-managing director
Running your own company means a dual tax role: as managing director drawing an appropriate salary, and as shareholder entitled to the profit.
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A great deal is decided at this interface – the level of the tax burden, recognition by the tax authorities and personal provision for old age. We structure this dual role so that it withstands scrutiny and protects your interests as owner as well as possible.
- Structuring and arm's-length review of managing director remuneration – fixed salary, variable pay and overall package
- Avoiding hidden profit distributions (vGA) through arm's-length contracts and service relationships
- Tax assessment of pension commitments and support in handling existing pension promises
- Advice on the owner's private retirement provision and wealth building, coordinated with the business sphere
- Tax evaluation of shareholder loans, leases and other service relationships between shareholder and company
- Assessment of the shareholder-managing director's social insurance status
- Coordinated preparation of the owner's and family's private income tax returns
Business and private wealth in context
In a family business, the business and private spheres are closely interwoven – the business property, real estate, securities portfolio or family wealth often relate directly to the company.
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This closeness needs careful ordering: it determines which assets are exposed to entrepreneurial risk and which are protected, and it has direct tax consequences. We ensure a clear, tax-conscious separation and allocation – so that what the family has built over the years remains secure.
- Tax assessment of the allocation of assets to business or private property
- Structuring the separation of business and private spheres with a view to tax and liability (tax aspects; legal implementation in coordination with lawyers)
- Tax support for business splits (Betriebsaufspaltung) and holding/operating company structures
- Assessment of elective business assets and special business assets in partnerships
- Tax support for business-use real estate and the entrepreneurial family's private property assets
- Conceptual work on pooling and safeguarding family wealth (in coordination with lawyers and notaries)
- Coordinated support for the family's entire wealth – business and private alike
Business succession & generational transfer
Handing a life's work to the next generation is the most demanding task in the life of a family business – and the one where forward-looking tax planning makes the greatest difference.
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Starting early makes it possible to avoid substantial tax burdens, use the German business-asset reliefs and structure the handover so that the company stays capable of acting and the family is provided for. We accompany this path over years – planning the tax side with good judgement, always in close coordination with the legal advisors.
- Tax design of anticipated succession and step-by-step handover models
- Use of the business-asset reliefs (secs. 13a, 13b German Inheritance Tax Act) and review of the relevant conditions
- Assessment of holding periods, payroll-sum rules and administrative assets with regard to the relief
- Inheritance and gift tax planning using personal allowances and sensible timing
- Tax structuring of maintenance payments, usufruct models and provision for the transferring generation
- Valuation of the company for inheritance and gift tax purposes
- Tax support for the handover in coordination with the lawyers and notaries drafting the transfer, corporate and testamentary documents
Support during tax audits
Family businesses with closely interwoven relationships between company, shareholders and relatives are a particular focus of the tax authorities – contracts among close relatives, managing director pay and withdrawals are regularly questioned.
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A field audit is exceptional for you; for us it is part of daily practice. We represent your interests at professional eye level – from the audit order through to implementing the results.
- Preparation for and support during tax field audits
- Careful evaluation of the typical audit focus areas in family businesses – contracts with relatives, managing director remuneration, hidden profit distributions
- Organising the requested documents and managing communication with the auditor
- Developing argumentation and negotiation strategies for contested issues
- Representing your interests in the final meeting
- Evaluating the audit report and conducting appeal proceedings vis-à-vis the tax authorities
A partner who stays.
Family businesses think in generations – their advisors should too. What our clients value about working with us is reliability over the years: the same contact who has known your company for a long time, understands the story behind the numbers and can read developments before they become problems. We are not merely on hand when a question becomes urgent; we accompany you continuously – and approach you when a window for action opens, not once it is closing. Since 2002 we have supported entrepreneurial families in the greater Munich area in exactly this way: personally, with foresight, and with the substance your life's work deserves.
Our understanding
Business, wealth and family – we think of them as one, across generations.
How we accompany family businesses.
Integrated.
Corporate taxes, shareholder taxation, private income tax and succession are designed here as one coordinated whole – not as separate processes.
Personal.
Renate Orthuber, the firm's owner, is your fixed point of contact – someone who knows your company and your family over the years and can put developments into perspective.
Long-term.
Every recommendation is measured by how it plays out in five, ten or twenty years – on distribution, on sale and above all on the handover to the next generation.
The challenge
Three worlds, one advisory.
One person, several roles.
Entrepreneur, shareholder, managing director, private individual – each role follows its own tax logic. What makes sense at company level can be disadvantageous at shareholder level; what creates liquidity in the short term can make the handover more expensive. These roles have to be thought through together – not one after the other.
Everything interlocks.
The business usually represents the largest part of the private wealth – and the company is the family's most important source of income. This interlocking is both a strength and a risk. That is why we treat business and private wealth not as two separate engagements, but as one connected whole.
Longer than one generation.
How is a life's work handed over without being burdened or broken up by taxes? How does the owner stay provided for, and how are several children treated fairly? Such courses are not set in the year of the handover, but long before. We think in those timeframes.
Contact
Let's talk about your life's work.
Company, wealth and family belong together – we advise on them as one, over years and generations. Let's get to know each other in a personal conversation.