The ETL Group is a multinational group of companies providing

tax A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to regulate and reduce negative externalities. Tax co ...

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

auditing An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon." Auditing al ...

and

management consultancy Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants ...

services. It is Germany's largest tax advisory company, with an annual turnover of over €950 million (2019), putting it among the top five auditing and tax advisory companies in the Federal Republic. The ETL Group employs 10,000 partners and staff, including more than 1,500 tax advisors, lawyers, auditors and management consultants. Currently, the group has some 200,000 clients in about 870 offices across Germany. Additionally, the ETL Group operates in almost 50 countries throughout the world under the "ETL Global" brand.

History

At the beginning of the 1970s, Franz-Josef Wernze and Klaus F. K. Schmidt joined forces to open a tax advisory office. The services they offered were soon extended beyond mere tax advice. Wernze and Schmidt took a holistic approach that combined tax advice with auditing and legal services in a one-stop consultancy package. Since 1995, the group of companies providing these services has been operating under the "ETL" brand.

Services

The ETL Group offers consultancy services for private individuals,

freelancer ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

s as well as

small and medium-sized enterprise Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel and revenue numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by many national agencies and international organizat ...

. These services are available for all questions regarding tax, legal, economic, organizational and financial issues. Customized consultancy and strategy concepts have been developed for

petrol station A filling station (also known as a gas station [] or petrol station []) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold are gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Fuel dispensers are used to ...

proprietors,

health care professionals Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, pain ...

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

and

restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...

owners,

farmers A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mi ...

and

foresters A forester is a person who practises forest management and forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including Restoration ecology, ecological restoration and management of Pr ...

franchising Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its busines ...

senior citizen Old age is the range of ages for people nearing and surpassing life expectancy. People who are of old age are also referred to as: old people, elderly, elders, senior citizens, seniors or older adults. Old age is not a definite biological sta ...

s and professional athletes. Th
felix1.de
AG Steuerberatungsgesellschaft, launched in 2014, focuses on target groups with a higher affinity for the online world and complements classical consultancy services with digital components such as online identification.

Group Structure

Under the holding company ETL AG Steuerberatungsgesellschaft, Essen, the ETL Group is the largest tax advisory company in Germany. Within the Group it is the ETL AG Steuerberatungsgesellschaft together with subsidiaries * Freund & Partner GmbH Steuerberatungsgesellschaft,

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, * RCU Vermögensverwaltung AG,

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

, and * eurodata AG,

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; Rhenish Franconian: ''Sabrigge'' ; ; ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken has 181,959 inhabitants and is Saarland's administrative, commerci ...

, that carry out the central holding functions. These include, for instance, key strategic decisions as well as the financial, investment and risk management for the whole group. Tax advisory services are pooled in the Freund & Partner GmbH Steuerberatungsgesellschaft corporate division, whereas sector-specific software as well as data centre capacities are provided in an independent corporate division under the leadership of eurodata AG. The RCU Vermögensverwaltung division also provides complementary consultancy and financial services with a focus on professional tax advisors as its target group. The Group's legal advice sector and auditing activities are coordinated by ETL Rechtsanwälte GmbH, Essen, together with ETL AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft, Berlin. Under the brand "ETL Global" ETL's international partners cooperate in more than 250 offices worldwide whenever their clients need advice on cross-border activities. Apart from this cooperation network, "ETL Global" also encompasses the shareholdings of the ETL Group in European markets, such as

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

and the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Social Responsibility and Sports Sponsorship

In 2008 the ETL foundation "Kinderträume" was created. Since then over 200 projects have been carried out across Germany to support children in need as well as sick children and teenagers. The ETL Group is also actively involved in the promotion of popular and

professional sports In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger a ...

via a division which is a separate entity from the consultancy services within the group.Examples: Viktoria Köln 1904 e.V. website

1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig e.V. website

Literature

* ETL – European Tax & Law, Essen 2010, * ETL - 25 Jahre Freund und Partner, 2016,

References

{{Authority control Management consulting firms of Germany Accounting firms Financial services companies of Germany Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia Financial services companies established in 1971 Consulting firms established in 1971 1971 establishments in West Germany Lechia Gdańsk sponsors