IMMUNIS

Immunis is a tax and business advisory practice on Kaperberg in Eupen, the main town of Belgium's German-speaking Community. The office reports more than twenty-five years of experience and an unusual structure it sets out: four tax advisers working as equals, supported by three staff. It is registered with the ITAA under number 50.517.394.

What makes this practice particular is its geography. Eupen lies a few kilometres from the German border and under an hour from the Netherlands and Luxembourg, in an area where many self-employed people and companies work on both sides of the border. The office makes that one of its five stated areas, cross-border businesses, naming Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Austria and Switzerland.

That capability is not decorative. A worker living in Belgium and employed in Germany, a Belgian company holding a Luxembourg subsidiary or a self-employed person invoicing German clients each fall under separate double taxation treaties, with their own rules on where tax is due, which social security applies and how VAT is handled. Few practices in Belgium deal with those questions daily.

Business advice covers company formation, financial and wealth advice, credit applications, insurance questions, retirement planning and grant applications. That list goes beyond the usual accounting scope and matches the German-speaking Steuerberater tradition, whose role is closer to that of a general economic adviser than a bookkeeper.

The two remaining areas are software solutions, with the firm guiding clients in choosing and implementing their tools, and accounting proper, with periodic returns and preparation of the annual accounts. The office states that it works with WinBooks.

The stated structure, four tax advisers as equal partners, is not a common formula. Most practices of this size rest on a founder surrounded by staff, which raises the question of continuity when they leave. An equal partnership spreads both the workload and knowledge of the files, and makes the office less dependent on one person. For a client whose relationship is meant to last, that is a form of security rarely put forward.

The site is published in German, the working language of the firm and of its region. For a self-employed person or a small company in eastern Belgium, that point is decisive: handling accounts and tax in one's own language, with a contact who also knows the German and Luxembourg rules, is possible at only a small number of practices in the country.