The situation
The tax auditor’s request list and audit order, uploaded
Two weeks into a field audit of a machinery group’s Austrian company in Linz, the auditor sends a list of fifty-three items, and the German parent in Regensburg is under audit at the same time. Intercompany agreements, transfer-pricing files, travel expenses, ledger exports. The head of tax has to allocate the items by Monday.
Most items are a document fetch. A dozen are not: they touch positions the auditor may challenge, documents the company may not be obliged to hand over, or deadlines with surcharges attached. Sorting which is which, with the rule behind each, is where the week goes.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- The audit order sets the scope
- The audit order names the taxes and periods under audit. Read each request against it, and raise any request that goes beyond it with the auditor before answering.
- A duty to cooperate
- The German Abgabenordnung and the Austrian Bundesabgabenordnung both oblige the taxpayer to cooperate and to provide information and documents in an audit. In Germany, the auditor can also require access to the electronic accounting data.
- Transfer-pricing records have their own deadline
- In Germany, transfer-pricing documentation must be produced within a fixed period after the auditor asks for it, and late or unusable documentation can lead to surcharges and estimates. Check the period in the version of the law that applies to this audit.
- Retention periods frame the request
- Records can only be produced if they had to be kept. Retention periods differ by type of record and have been changed recently in Germany, so check the period for each category before telling the auditor a document is no longer held.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
German GmbH under external audit for 2021 to 2023. The auditor asks for the transfer-pricing documentation, a data export of the general ledger and our internal tax risk analysis. Within what period must we deliver each, and are we obliged to hand over the internal analysis?
You start with
The tax auditor’s request list and audit order, uploaded
- 01
Upload the request list and audit order
Add the auditor’s list, the audit order and the intercompany agreements. azta reads them and refers back to the passage behind each answer.
File upload· Pro - 02
Research the items that need a rule
Ask about each contested item. azta cites the Abgabenordnung, the Bundesabgabenordnung, the income tax acts and the court decisions on the same point.
Cited research· Free - 03
Build the pack outline
Ask for an outline grouped by type of request, with owner, document and deadline for each item. Edit it in Canvas.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro - 04
Export for the team
Export to Word and send it to the owners. The research stays with the file for the closing meeting.
Word export· Pro You send
A response pack outline: each item, its owner, the documents and the rule behind it
What you get
A response pack outline: each item, its owner, the documents and the rule behind it
Response pack outline · draft
Field audit 2021 to 2023: response pack, items 1 to 20
Section A, records the company must keep. Items 1 to 12 and 15: ledgers, invoices, payroll journals and the data export. Owner: group accounting. The export is supplied in the format the auditor asked for, from the archived system for 2021.
Section B, transfer pricing. Items 13 and 14. The documentation is due within the statutory period from the date of the request, which is entered on the tracker. Owner: head of tax. The 2022 local file needs updating for the new cost-sharing agreement before it goes out.
Section C, items to discuss with the auditor first. Item 17 asks for the internal tax risk analysis. Whether the company must hand over internal assessments is set out in Annex 1 with the provisions and decisions found. Recommendation: raise the scope of this item at the next meeting.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
13 minutes a month
At €125 an hour, that is all the time Pro (€27 a month) has to take off your desk to cover its price.
Example figures. Replace them with your own.
- Hours back a year
- 36
- Capacity at your rate
- €4,500
- More audit response packs a quarter
- 0.8
- Return on Pro
- 13.9×
- Research
- Drafting
- Your review
A scenario you set, not a promise. The hours that come back go to another client, or deeper into this one.
Want these numbers on your team’s real workload?
Book a demoSources azta searches here
- Gesetze im Internet
- Rechtsprechung im Internet
- RIS
What stays with you
- Deciding which items to discuss with the auditor, and how.
- Gathering the documents and checking them before they leave.
- The relationship with the auditor and the closing meeting.
Frequently asked questions
- Can several people work on the same pack?
- On Enterprise, shared workspaces keep the documents, conversations and drafts for the audit together, with access by membership.
- Does azta hold the tax administration’s guidance?
- azta holds legislation, case law and the regulator material listed in its source register. Where a guidance document you rely on is not there, upload it and azta reads it alongside the law.
- Is the auditor’s request list kept confidential?
- Uploaded documents are never used for training on any plan, and they stay in the EU/EEA.
