Germany

Deloitte Germany

Franklinstraße 50

60486 Frankfurt am Main

Germany

Tel: +49 69 75695 6204

Email: jdespiegeleer@deloitte.de

Website: www.deloitte.de

Johan has more than 20 years of experience in all areas of VAT. He is a partner at Deloitte Germany in Frankfurt am Main.

Having been with Deloitte since 2002, Johan is Deloitte Germany's Category Leader for Indirect Tax. He leads a group of 70 people located in eight offices across Germany. He is a member of Deloitte's EMEA and Global Indirect Tax Steering Committee. In this role Johan is responsible for the cooperation of the German indirect tax group with Deloitte's international member firm network, serving multinational and global clients.

Before joining Deloitte, Johan worked for Arthur Andersen for seven years in Brussels and Frankfurt. Before that, he served for two and a half years as a tax inspector at the Belgian VAT authority in the Brussels region.

Johan advises international and global clients in a wide variety of industries. His focus is on the financial services industry, advising multinational investment banks on many occasions. He also advises clients doing business in the manufacturing and consumer business industries. Johan has vast expertise in planning and coordinating large multinational engagements, focusing on efficient compliance, VAT-aligned supply chain and identification of VAT opportunities and risks (indirect tax review projects). Johan has also assisted clients in complex tax audits and tax litigation.

Johan has a master's degree in administrative sciences and a bachelor's degree in fiscal sciences. He is a Belgian certified tax consultant (Belastingconsulent). Johan is a frequent speaker at national and international tax seminars. Since 2012, he has lectured at the University of Wuerzburg, teaching VAT for master's candidates. His mother tongue is Dutch (Flemish) and he is fluent in English, German and French.

Deloitte Germany

Rosenheimer Platz 4

81669 Munich

Germany

Tel: +49 89 29036 8514

Email: eforster@deloitte.de

Website: www.deloitte.de

Eduard Forster, Deloitte Germany, has more than 18 years of experience in domestic and international tax covering a wide range of international tax planning issues. He is focused on VAT matters in general and on supply chain management as well as real estate in particular.

Eduard advises small and medium-sized enterprises as well as corporations related to domestic and foreign groups. He has managed various VAT projects (eg improving cash position, avoiding registrations, increasing of the ratio of input VAT deduction, tax code automatisation, supply chain management, etc).

Eduard has a master's degree in economics and a doctorate with a VAT focused thesis ("Public bodies and VAT harmonization"). He is a certified German tax expert and is a regular speaker at external tax conferences (EUROFORUM, MangementCircle etc) as well as at various client seminars (eg Annual Year End Tax Seminar, VAT Roadshows). He is a permanent author with Der Umsatz-Steuer-Berater (The Sales Tax Consultant) and has authored articles in various tax journals.

Deloitte Germany

Kurfürstendamm 23

10719 Berlin

Germany

Tel: +49 (0)30 25468 258

Fax: +49 (0)30 25468 213

Email: ugruenwald@deloitte.de

Website: www.deloitte.com

Ulrich Grünwald, Deloitte Germany, has been a partner in the indirect tax service team in the Berlin office in 2015. Ulrich has more than 23 years of professional experience in the field of taxes with a strong focus on indirect taxation. Ulrich started his professional career as the head of a VAT audit department with the German tax authorities. He continued his career as head of the VAT service team, as well as the international VAT centre of excellence of a global audit network for more than 10 years when he joined a well-known tax focused German law firm as a partner specialising in indirect taxes.

Ulrich has extensive practical experience in advising domestic and multinational clients. He focuses on German and European VAT law, as well as in insurance premium tax law. His professional experience includes VAT, insurance premium tax, other indirect taxes and procedural law. He developed a broad working experience and serves clients in a wide variety of industries including the service sector, the manufacturing and consumer industries.

He is a regular speaker at public tax events and a frequent publisher on VAT and other indirect tax issues.

Ulrich received his JD in European VAT law at Erlangen/Nürnberg University. He is a certified tax adviser and a lawyer

Deloitte Germany

Loeffelstrasse 42

Stuttgart, 70597

Germany

Tel: +49 711 16554 7201

Website: www.deloitte.de

Thomas Knauer has more than 15 years of experience in all areas of VAT advisory and VAT recovery in Germany and Europe. Thomas is a partner at Deloitte Germany and serves as the head of the indirect tax service line in Stuttgart.

He is specialised on VAT advisory regarding tax efficient supply chains and has, in particular, special industry knowledge regarding the supply of hardware and software, the supply of pharmaceutical products and the automotive industry. His focus is on questions concerning the VAT finding in ERP systems (especially SAP) and VAT health checks and quick scans.

Before becoming a partner with Deloitte, Thomas was working in the VAT consulting groups of Ernst & Young and Arthur Andersen.

Thomas has a degree in business administration from University of Saarbrücken (Dipl.-Kfm) and is a certified tax adviser (Steuerberater). He also acts as speaker on national and international VAT related events as well as on in-house trainings. In addition, he frequently holds readings at the University of Hohenheim regarding VAT.

Deloitte

Franklinstraße 50

60486 Frankfurt

Germany

Tel: +49 69 75695 6321

Fax: +49 69 75695 6724

Mobile: +49 151 58002558

Email: bmertgen@deloitte.de

Website: www.deloitte.com/de

Bettina Mertgen is a director at Deloitte's German indirect tax service line – customs and global trade (CGT) and partner at the associated international law firm Deloitte Legal. She is specialised in customs, excise duty, and foreign trade law and export control with more than 10 years of professional experience as an attorney at law, tax lawyer, certified tax adviser, and certified adviser for customs and excise duty. Bettina is one of the leading specialists in indirect taxation in Germany. She leads the legal unit within the CGT team and is head of the CGT group in Deloitte's Frankfurt office. She has extensive experience in advising clients with regard to opposition and administrative fines proceedings, tax litigation, customs audits and compliance reviews.

After her graduation in law from Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University Frankfurt am Main in 2002, Bettina completed her legal clerkship in Frankfurt and New York with focus on tax law. In 2006, she gained admission to the German Bar. Before joining Deloitte in 2015, she worked for more than eight years for an international law firm in Frankfurt and Washington DC and became a specialist in her area of law. High-level advisory with respect to complex and difficult matters in this area of law became her strengths. She successfully took part in legal proceedings to the Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzhof) concerning excise duty.

Bettina co-authored the book Compliance im Außenwirtschaftsrecht covering compliance in customs and foreign trade law. It was tailored to fit the practical needs of companies and provide its decision makers with guidance on export control and customs compliance. Moreover, she publishes articles in professional journals on a regular basis covering all relevant aspects of customs, excise duty and foreign trade law. Most recently, she covered the possible consequences of Brexit (the UK leaving the EU) on indirect taxation as well as the interaction between transfer pricing and customs valuation.

Besides her work and her publications, Bettina is also a speaker at seminars on a regular basis.

Deloitte Germany

Reichskanzler-Müller-Str. 25

68165 Mannheim

Germany

Tel: 0621 15901 869

Email: micschaefer@deloitte.de

Website: www.deloitte.com

Michael Schäfer, Deloitte Germany, is a partner and head of customs and global trade service line in Germany since January 2015. He has more than 25 years of experience in customs and global trade matters. He started his career as an auditor for the German customs authorities. Consecutively he gathered experience in industrial enterprises as head of goods dispatch and customs. He implemented export control management and customs systems and added during his time at SAP a profound knowledge in SAP ERP. He was responsible for the go-to-market for SAP's global trade management solution (SAP GTS) in Europe.

Before joining Deloitte, Michael worked as a consultant and was leading several IT-related customs and trade projects. His personal focus topics are EU customs law, preferential trade agreements, customs processes and organisation, customs and trade systems, and audit and review projects. Due to his industrial experience he is familiar with all manufacturing and processing industries, logistic service providers, and retail & consumer industries. Michael holds a master's degree in financial administration and a master in business administration.