Tax and accounting

As early as 40 years ago, bpv Huegel was one of the first Austrian law firms to focus on integrated tax law advice – legal and tax advice from a single source for outstanding consulting success. This holistic approach has proven extremely successful and has taken us to the top of the Austrian law firms. For some time now, this approach has also included national and international accounting.

For decades, bpv Huegel has thus offered one of the largest and most renowned high-end tax law practices in Austria. Special attention is paid to the fact that the practice group members are dual-qualified as attorneys-at-law and tax advisors.

Nicolas Wolski	Kornelia Wittmann	Roland Juill
Lucas Hora		Patrick Nutz-Fallheier

Recommended as top tax law practice in Austria

The bpv Huegel tax law practice is recognized as one of the best tax law practices in Austria and is regularly recommended in national and international rankings.

Legal Areas of Advice

We especially advise on the following legal areas:

• national and international corporate tax law,
• withholding tax law,
• transfer pricing,
• income tax law,
• reorganisation tax law,
• domestic and international accounting,
• transaction taxes such as real estate transfer tax and stamp duty,
• value added tax and customs duties as well as
• fiscal criminal law.

Focus

The tax practice group focuses especially on

• tax planning,
• the set up and adjustment of holding structures,
• debt capital structuring/adjustment (interest barrier/limitation of interest deductibility),
• the planning, preparation and implementation of (cross-border) reorganisations,
• acquisition structuring and financing,
• inbound and outbound relocations of companies and individuals (exit tax),
• management and/or employee participation programs,
• foundations and trusts (planning/structuring and set up as well as ongoing tax issues).

Tax Audits | Disputes | Litigation, fiscal criminal law and internal investigations

The bpv Huegel tax team regularly advises or represents its clients

• with regard to tax audits/tax field audits (e.g., preparation, assistance/monitoring, review of the report, etc.),
• in tax disputes,
• pre-litigation settlements,
• in proceedings before the Austrian Federal Fiscal Court, the Austrian Supreme Administrative Court, the Austrian Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union,
• in mutual agreement and arbitration proceedings,
• regarding DAC 6/Austrian EU Mandatory Reporting Act-Reporting,
• in fiscal criminal law matters,
• regarding voluntary disclosures with penal waiver effect and
• in tax-driven internal investigations.

Tax Rulings and Tax Risk Assessment

The team also focuses on rulings (binding advance rulings and good faith rulings), and the evaluation of tax risks for tax litigations and tax (W&I) insurances.

DAC 6 | Austrian Mandatory Disclosure Act-Reporting

In Austria (EU Mandatory Dislosure Act, EU-MPfG) as well as in the entire EU (DAC 6 Directive), it is now mandatory to report so-called reportable cross-border arrangements to the tax authorities. The tax authorities want to be informed at an early stage about certain arrangements which they consider to be particularly “aggressive”.

These mandatory disclosure rules (MDR) may result in a large number of transactions, that are completely legal under tax law, have to be reported. In Austria, advisors (so-called intermediaries) are primarily obliged to report, i.e. in particular notaries, attorneys-at-law and tax advisors, but under certain circumstances also group legal or group tax departments.

Although the primary objective of the MDR is to enable Member States to react in good time to prevent undesirable (albeit legal) arrangements (e.g., amendments to legislation), the reported data may also be used by the tax authorities for a variety of other purposes. In particular, this data may be used for tax assessment and tax audits (tax field audits). Since the reported data is fed into the central register throughout Europe, this also applies to tax assessments and tax audits abroad.

Against this background, it is obvious that such reports should be well-considered drafted with due care. Thanks to its integrated tax law expertise, bpv Hügel can check in good time whether your transaction is subject to reporting requirements and correctly assess this sensitive data and submit reports that do not unnecessarily trigger problems at the next tax assessment and/or tax audit.