Obtain a CPA letter-like document / prove lawful origin of funds in Germany?

[foobar]

Hi all!

I'm in the middle of collecting all the required documents to apply for a rentista residency. I need a way to prove the lawful origin of funds in my bank account (from previous jobs, interest rates, etc) and in the US the typical way seems to be to hire a CPA to write a so called CPA letter (which states the amounts of funds and that they verify the lawful origin of them).

As I'm from Germany, we don't have CPAs here. I've consulted multiple tax consultants but they all declined. So far my only chance seems to be a lawyer who is specialized in this matter but he wants a low four digit amount in EUR for writing a CPA letter-like document.

Question primarily to the people from Germany here: Is there any cheaper way to prove the lawful origin of funds?
I was advised that bank account statements and pay stubs are not sufficient and can't be apostilled anyways. One of the tax agents recommended to get a "bank letter" from my bank but this would only verify the presence of the funds on my bank account, not the legal origin. Another advise was to get my current and previous employers to write a letter on the total salary they paid me and get it notarized and apostilled but I'm not sure if this (in combination with the bank letter) would be sufficient.

If anyone has some experience with this I'd be very happy to know about other ways to provide the required proof.

Many thanks and best regards

 

[Alby]

Perhaps not currently relevant (and also a different home country), but as long ago as 2018, I had to produce the documentation for a Rentista application and a simple letter from my home country accountant summarizing everything that the supporting documentation (rental contract, bank statements showing the money going into the account) demonstrated was sufficient for Migraciones (the letter was, of course, apostilled by the home country and translated officially here in Argentina). There was no requirement from Migraciones that the accountant have a CPA qualification; although he did have the home-country equivalent. In fact, there was no formal requirement from Migraciones at that time to provide such a summary document at all; I only did so because a person on the counter at Migraciones suggested it would be a good idea.

Separately, a friend here (permanent resident) has just bought a property here and brought a large sum of money into her Argentine bank for the purpose. The bank would not release the money to her even after showing her home-country income going into her home-country account for the last six months in an effort to show the legal justification for the existence of the funds. When she asked if a letter from her employer stating that she had been employed by them for 30 years and been paid the entire time would suffice, the bank said no, it would not.

How was she finally able to solve the problem? By getting an Argentine accountant matriculado to write the letter. I don't know what the letter said, or how the local accountant satisfied herself that the funds were licit. I doubt she had any way of doing so and presumably acted on the basis of trust in her client. The point is that it seems the local credential counted for more in Argentina than any statement from an overseas entity, even though that entity had far more information and no obvious reason to mislead.

I'm not suggesting the situation is the same: she had to demonstrate the origin to her bank, whereas you have to demonstrate it to Migraciones. But it might not hurt to test whether her solution (use a local accountant matriculado willing to vouch for you) might work for your problem.

 

[barg]

Try a Steuerberater?

 

[Silvie]

You get all the documents, bank statements, etc. and then you submit a copy to the CPA and his/her issuing a letter to certify the origin funds shouldn’t be that expensive; the government trusts more the CPA than they trust us.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

Are you still in Germany? When I had a (different) problem to resolve in the UK I found the Argentine consulate in London very helpful and maybe the one nearest you could help you find a way through.

I don't know about financial law in Europe but could the high fee be to cover liability insurance against them inadvertently supplying wrong information?

 

[srpez]

A search for "german income statement" or "steuerberater" on fiverr.com shows a lot of people who might be able to write you a letter.

 

[Alby]

The point is that it seems the local credential counted for more in Argentina than any statement from an overseas entity, even though that entity had far more information and no obvious reason to mislead.

To clarify my own point here, if I understood correctly what happened, an Argentine bank was not prepared to accept the information from the foreign employer itself, but was prepared to do so if that same information came with the OK from a local accountant (matriculado), yet that accountant couldn't possibly really have known with any more certainty than the bank itself that the funds were licit (and the bank surely must have understood that). Quite how my friend convinced the local accountant to write the letter, I'm not sure. Nor what the fee was. But it seems this can be just as much about box-ticking as it is about genuine due diligence (by law we need to check whether these funds are licit; nobody really can be sure, but OK, a contador matriculado has said so, so that'll do).