hTTi

Welp I am back, sadly not on the most pleasent grounds. I lost my mom last month and am now navigating the financial leaglities of inherentance in form of life insurance and 401k investments. I am at a complete loss of what to do- how to cover my bases, what choices to make or who to turn to. Anyone had similar experiences with inheretance in the United states and how that converts into taxation there as well as here? I want to make sure I proceed correctly without any unexpected plot twists. I am not sure if I need a financial advisor or a tax specialist with experience in international laws, but I would happily take any personal recommendations.

Happy to see so many of you stuck together to create a new haven for expats. I wish you all a beautiful New years.

Best wishes
Serenajean1

I'm sorry about your mother. I lost mine in 2016 and think of her every day still.

As I prepare to move to DE, I considered engaging Cerity Partners for tax advice since they are a sponsor of the local German-American Business Association. However, their offering is more focused asset management than taxes. Cerity was kind enough to recommend the following two tax advisers:

Hannes Rieker
A German tax advisor living in Fresno. Runs a small tax practice, and obviously understands German
tax better than most. He would be a great low-cost choice for US taxes once you are gone, with a
small amount of German advice as well.
hrieker@riekercpa.com

Roland Sabates
Very experienced attorney and tax advisor, who can blend together ongoing US tax prep with revised
estate planning for American's headed abroad. He's not a Germany expert, but he has connections and
some knowledge, and he can help you put together the right team.
roland@expatlegal.com

To date I have not spoken to either of them. I'm hesitant because I already have an accountant whom I trust, and really just want advice about financial aspects of moving to Germany.

Hope this helps,
Alison

Serenajean1 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 31, 2025 11:43 pm Welp I am back, sadly not on the most pleasent grounds. I lost my mom last month and am now navigating the financial leaglities of inherentance in form of life insurance and 401k investments. I am at a complete loss of what to do- how to cover my bases, what choices to make or who to turn to. Anyone had similar experiences with inheretance in the United states and how that converts into taxation there as well as here? I want to make sure I proceed correctly without any unexpected plot twists.

Hi Serena-Jean, good to have you back, even if the cause is a sad one.

You need to tell the Finanzamt responsible for inheritance tax in your area about your inheritance, by sending them a notice form.
Just enter your postal code here and within the results, scroll down to the entry "Finanzämter mit der Aufgabe „Erbschaft- und Schenkungsteuer”", i.e. Finanzamt responsible for inheritance tax, so that you know to which Finanzamt to send the form I further down: https://www.bzst.de/DE/Service/Behoerde ... _node.html

The notice form has to be signed by you and needs to arrive at the Finanzamt within 3 months of the day your mum died: https://finanzamt-bw.fv-bwl.de/site/pbs ... schaft.pdf
In this form, you declare the value of everything you inherited from your mum, using the values that they had on the day she died, plus any major gifts she gave you within the last 10 years.
For example, a 401k will consist of investment funds and stocks, so you ask the 401k provider to issue you a certificate what the market value of that 401k was on the day your mum died.
To convert the USD value into €, use the exchange rate of the European Central Bank that was valid on the date of her death (scroll down to "Download a PDF with the exchange rates of a specific day"): https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_ ... ex.en.html

If the total value of what you inherited (including any gifts she gave you within the last 10 years before her death) is up to 400,000€ then you will not owe any German inheritance tax, since 400,000€ is the tax-free amount with regards to inheritance tax for an inheritance left by a parent to a child.

Please also read: https://expertise.tax/en/faq-german-tax ... tance_gift

Serenajean1 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 31, 2025 11:43 pm I am not sure if I need a financial advisor or a tax specialist with experience in international laws

The above notice form you can fill in by yourself.
If the Finanzamt then asks you to file an inheritance tax you need a Steuerberater.
But as long as you can provide clear values for everything you inherited, backed up by the necessary supporting documentation, any Steuerberater will do, i.e. also your present Steuerberater.