The accountant's legal-tax partner: advice on difficult matters, assistance and representation at the tax audit, the challenge and tax litigation — so that you stay on the accounting, and the client is defended by an attorney with tax training.
The accountant is closest to the client's tax situation: they keep the records, file the returns and, often, are the first to sense an audit approaching or a matter becoming risky. But where the problem goes beyond accounting and becomes a matter of law — an ongoing audit, a tax assessment, a challenge, a trial — the competence and the role change.
This is where I come in as your partner. The roles stay clearly separated: you keep the relationship and the accounting records, I add on the legal-tax component an accountant cannot cover — representation as an attorney before the audit bodies and the courts, the challenge, the litigation. And my tax training makes the discussion between us direct, in the same technical language, without translation.
For an accountant, having such a partner means two things: the client is properly defended in the area where the accountant cannot intervene, and the accountant themselves is protected — because a problem taken in time to the right specialist does not come back as a client's grievance.
I cover the entire legal-tax journey of a matter, complementing your accounting work.
A documented tax opinion when a matter goes beyond the comfort zone — an unusual operation, an uncertain tax treatment, a risk you want to clarify before recording it.
Presence and strategy during the audit: what is communicated, how the taxpayer's position is formulated, how the audit is prevented from turning into litigation — alongside you, not instead of you.
Intervention between the draft report and the final decision — observations on the audit report, the taxpayer's position — the moment when the outcome can still be influenced.
Drafting and arguing the challenge against the tax assessment, within the legal deadline, with technical and legal argument — the mandatory preliminary stage before the court.
Representation before the administrative tax court against the decision on the challenge, including presenting the evidence and the expert report.
A specialist report, fast, usable as a document — to ground a tax position before or during litigation.
And after the trial: enforcing a favourable judgment, recovering sums or managing the consequences — the post-litigation stage is part of the accompaniment.
The distinction is clear and a matter of principle. The accountant keeps the accounts, prepares and files the returns, certifies the statements — work I do not perform and do not compete with. I cover the legal-tax side: representation as an attorney and tax expertise, where an accountant cannot, by law, intervene.
Likewise, tax expertise and accounting expertise are distinct fields: I act exclusively in taxation. The collaboration works precisely because the roles do not overlap — each stays on its own ground, for the benefit of the shared client.
Records, returns, certification
Tax matters, opinions, lawful optimisation
Audit, challenge, litigation
Party-appointed and out-of-court expertise
The earlier the better — ideally, from the audit notice or at the first sign that the discussion with the inspectors is becoming tense. I can intervene as an attorney alongside you during the audit, to formulate the taxpayer's position correctly and prevent escalation.
If a tax assessment has already been issued, the time is now: the deadline for challenging runs from communication and is short.
No. The relationship with the client and the accounting stay yours. I intervene on a one-off basis, on the legal-tax component — audit, challenge, litigation — and withdraw when it is over. The collaboration takes place between professionals, through a cooperation agreement.
The model is that of a partner you refer to with confidence when a matter goes beyond the accounting, knowing the matter returns to you once the legal component is resolved.
Because, in a tax matter, half the defence is technical. A generalist attorney understands the procedure, but not necessarily the tax base, the VAT mechanism or how the authority built the calculation. The discussion with you, like the defence itself, needs someone who reads an audit report as a tax specialist, not only as a lawyer.
Bringing together the capacities of attorney, tax adviser and tax expert means nothing is lost at the border between the technical and the legal.
Yes. For an accounting firm with a portfolio, an ongoing collaboration is often the most efficient: a legal-tax partner you can call on for the difficult matters of any client, with the accumulated knowledge of how you work.
The concrete form — one-off, per case, or ongoing — is set according to the volume and nature of your portfolio.
Indirectly, yes. A risky matter taken in time to the right specialist reduces the likelihood that an unfavourable outcome will come back to you as a client's grievance. Knowing when and to whom to refer a problem that goes beyond accounting is, in itself, a form of good professional practice.
Yes, the collaboration is international. Documents are sent electronically, discussions take place remotely, and a physical presence — at an audit, at a hearing — is arranged when necessary. Distance affects neither promptness nor quality.
Whether it is an ongoing audit, a tax assessment or a matter you want to clarify in advance, a first conversation establishes how I can support you — collegially, in support of your relationship with the client.