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The JUVE Ranking 2023 of Germany's leading tax firms is out - and KPMG achieves top rankings. Our tax experts received top marks in three areas. The performance evaluation by JUVE's specialist editors is based on extensive research with consulting firms, company managers, representatives of the authorities and employees from the judiciary and academia.

KPMG received the highest possible award of five out of five possible stars in the following categories:

Financial taxes: Institutional tax advice to the financial industry

Focus: operational assumption of tax functions, tax reporting for financial service providers, investment taxes, design of equity and debt capital market products, tax audits, M&A for financial service providers VAT for financial service providers, transfer pricing for financial service providers

JUVE cites compliance advice for private equity and special funds as one of the reasons for the top rating. It is "developing particularly dynamically" and is an area "that promises highly scalable business". At KPMG, "audit experience, consulting, tech know-how and tax advice" complement each other. In addition, the comprehensive declaration business for real estate funds is one of the "growth drivers" because the 250-member team - including 14 partners and around 70 other professionals - can also use its taxtech expertise in this area. This will broaden the team, which is already of high quality.

Value added taxes

Focus: Technology and process consulting, risk management, structures, design

When it comes to automation and digitalisation, the 200-strong team - including 16 partners and around 80 other professionals - is setting standards, especially in the conversion to SAP S/4HANA, JUVE reports. Currently, no other VAT unit has such a comprehensive and in-depth technological and procedural set-up. The areas of e-commerce and crypto as well as knowledge management were recently expanded. Other important aspects are online trading, VAT fiscal unity according to § 2b UStG and global VAT compliance. "In close cooperation with the energy tax consultancy, the team has also skilfully taken up the demand of some energy suppliers and e-mobility providers for VAT questions on the topic of charging stations."

Personal corporate taxes

Focus: global employee mobility, payroll tax (accounting and consulting)

"KPMG has recently impressively maintained its position at the top of the market for advice on personal corporate taxes", according to JUVE's research on the team of around 400, including 13 partners and around 85 other professionals. The "wheels in advising on transformation processes in companies, which arise, for example, through ESG, skills shortages or supply chain issues, mesh smoothly within the KPMG organisation". The global outsourcing of large compliance mandates also plays a major role. The ESG megatrend is also becoming increasingly relevant in income tax consulting - for example, in ESG-compliant fleet management.

Compact: About the ranking

As part of the research for the JUVE Handbook of Taxes, the editorial team has interviewed advisors, clients and, in some cases, academics over the past twelve months in order to determine their perception and assessment of the market and about 186 tax consulting firms in Germany.

  • 327 consulting firms were contacted by questionnaire, with a total of 675 completed questionnaires.
  • 2,159 interviews were conducted with consultants in law firms and consulting companies as well as company and public authority representatives.
  • 1,571 company representatives were interviewed by e-mail about their experiences with consulting firms.