The situation
A tax office’s information request, uploaded as a PDF
A client forwards a letter from the tax office on a Friday afternoon. It asks eleven questions about intercompany charges and two expense categories, and it gives a deadline. The client wants to know what to send and what not to volunteer.
Each question needs the rule behind it, the evidence the client already has and a careful sentence. The research is not hard. There is just a lot of it, and a missed point costs more than a slow one.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- Answer what was asked
- A response maps one-to-one onto the authority’s questions. Each answer states the facts, the documents attached and, where a position is taken, the provision it rests on.
- Know the deadline and how to extend it
- The letter sets a time limit. National procedure rules govern whether and how an extension can be requested, and missing the limit has consequences of its own.
- Use the courts where the position is contested
- Where the authority’s reading is disputed, court decisions on the same point carry more weight than commentary. Find them before you commit to a position in writing.
- Keep the file consistent
- Answers become part of the audit file. A position taken now should match the client’s returns and earlier correspondence.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
Attached is the German tax office’s request and our client’s service agreement with its Polish parent. For questions 3 to 7, what must we show to support deducting the management fees, and are there Federal Fiscal Court decisions on similar fees?
You start with
A tax office’s information request, uploaded as a PDF
- 01
Upload the letter and the client’s documents
Add the request, the intercompany agreements and the ledgers. azta reads them and refers back to the passage it relied on.
File upload· Pro - 02
Research each point
Ask about each question in turn. azta cites the tax act, the procedure rules and the relevant guidance it holds.
Cited research· Free - 03
Find the decisions on contested points
For the two expense categories, ask for court decisions on the same deduction. azta searches published case law and summarises the holdings with links to the full text.
Case-law search - 04
Draft the response
Ask for a response structured by the authority’s numbering. Refine it in Canvas, then export to Word for the client’s signature.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro You send
A point-by-point response with the provisions and decisions relied on
What you get
A point-by-point response with the provisions and decisions relied on
Response · draft
Response to the request of 14 October, questions 3 to 7
Question 3. The management services are provided under the agreement of 2 January 2025, attached as Annex 1. The services actually received in the period are documented in the monthly reports in Annex 2.
Question 4. The fee is charged at cost plus a mark-up. The calculation for the period is attached as Annex 3. The company considers the cost deductible because it was incurred to earn revenue, as set out below with the provisions relied on.
Question 5. Published decisions of the Federal Fiscal Court on similar fees turn on whether the taxpayer can evidence the services actually received. The company holds such evidence and attaches it.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
11 minutes a month
At €160 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
- 50
- Capacity at your rate
- €8,064
- More audit responses a quarter
- 1.4
- Return on Pro
- 24.9×
- 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
- Dziennik Ustaw
- EUR-Lex · Curia
What stays with you
- Deciding what to volunteer and what to leave out.
- Checking every fact against the client’s records.
- Signing off the position before it reaches the authority.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the uploaded letter used to train models?
- No. Client documents are never used for training on any plan, and they stay in the EU/EEA.
- Does azta find court decisions or only statutes?
- Both. Court decisions make up about two thirds of the documents azta searches, alongside legislation, EU law and regulator material.
- Can the response follow our firm’s format?
- On Enterprise, firm templates apply your letterhead, fonts and disclaimers to every document.
