“AI tax advisor” sounds like the future. The Berlin Chamber of Tax Consultants sees this as a legal problem – and is now suing the startup Accountable.
Imagine you’re building a startup, everything is going smoothly, and then it’s not the VC, but the Berlin Chamber of Tax Consultants that knocks on the door with a lawsuit. That’s exactly what happened with Accountable.
The tax startup has an AI product called “AI Tax Advisor”. This is intended to make everything about taxes easier for the self-employed: answering questions, sorting receipts, preparing tax returns. The chamber sees this critically. Reason: The term “AI tax advisor” is already problematic because it violates competition rules and could affect the protected title of “tax advisor”. The product itself has also been criticized because, in the Chamber’s view, it is too close to classic tax advice without the company being appropriately licensed for this.
Co-founder Tino Keller is surprised and says to Gründerszene: In his opinion, the term “AI tax advisor” does not give the impression of a real tax advisor. “We’re not saying that we’re tax advisors. We’re saying that it’s an AI,” he argues.
Between law and software reality
Legally, the chamber relies, among other things, on the so-called right of reservation of tax advisors. This means that certain tasks such as real, individual tax advice may only be carried out by appropriately trained and licensed professionals.
The startup counters: These limits are adhered to. Although you work with tax advisors, you consciously stay away from their core business. Your own employees are not allowed to do tax returns or classic reservation tasks; such cases would go directly to tax advisors.
At the same time, he admits that his product reaches its limits in more complicated cases, such as real estate, GmbH shares or crypto. An export is then created and handed over to tax advisor partners who take care of the tax return, he explains. “Our claim is that we adhere to the law. We just have a different interpretation than the Chamber of Tax Advisors,” says Keller.
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The fact that the chamber is now taking legal action is more likely to raise eyebrows at the startup than to panic, especially because the software has long been used by thousands of self-employed people, as Keller explains.
AI meets regulation: A structural conflict
Accountable sees the matter as more than just a dispute about its own product. For Keller, it is fundamentally about how AI can be used in strictly regulated areas. “You shouldn’t ban innovation. The question is rather whether it will be promoted in Germany or somewhere else,” he told us.
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In his view, the lawsuit itself could also send a signal beyond the individual case. “I also believe that the fear of such lawsuits slows down innovation.” At the same time, it is about clarifying the dispute and developing rules for AI: “We are fighting it out now and then hopefully there will be a social discussion and decisions about it.”
How do other tax experts see it? We spoke to Fabian Walter, better known as “steuerfabi”. More than 1.3 million people follow his posts about the complex world of taxes on Tiktok and Instagram. “In my opinion, it’s essentially about protecting the profession,” says Walter to Gründerszene. From his point of view, this is not entirely wrong because the title “tax advisor” stands for quality and responsibility. At the same time, however, he criticizes: “The chamber is attacking a symptom, not the cause. Many self-employed people cannot find a tax advisor or cannot afford one.”
Nevertheless, Walter says: “I think the term AI tax advisor is problematic.” The term suggests a type of professional practice that software cannot achieve. “An AI is not liable and cannot represent you before the tax office,” is his criticism. Terms like tax AI or AI tax assistance are better. But he also thinks: If the profession and the chamber had worked more closely on such AI solutions, the conflict might have been more relaxed.
