Objection proceedings, tax court actions, criminal tax defence and voluntary self-disclosure under the German Anti-Money Laundering Act – taking stock for legal and tax practice
As of September 2026 · Rudolph Rechtsanwälte Partnerschaft mbB, Nuremberg · certified specialist lawyers for criminal law and for tax law
Anti-money laundering law has turned advisers into gatekeepers – on paper at least. A lawyer who occasionally conducts objection proceedings against a tax assessment, brings an action before the tax court or defends clients in criminal tax matters hears the same triad at every training event, namely risk analysis, identification duties and suspicious transaction reports. What often gets lost is the first and most important question. For a large part of precisely these activities, the lawyer is not an obliged entity under the German Anti-Money Laundering Act (Geldwäschegesetz, GwG) at all. The lawyer is not a deputy sheriff of the state, and the tax adviser is not the reporting arm of the tax administration. The two professions are, however, drawn into the system in different ways. The lawyer only where his or her work belongs to one of the catalogue transactions that typically create asset transfers, structures or legitimacy. The tax adviser, by contrast, with his or her entire professional activity, although the law relieves that burden again through privileges for legal advice and representation in proceedings.
Anyone who gets this first switch right saves a great deal of unnecessary bureaucracy – and at the same time recognises the cases in which anti-money laundering law really does become serious. This article sets out the legal position as of September 2026, including the GwG Reporting Regulation (GwG-Meldeverordnung, GwGMeldV) in force since 1 March 2026 and the EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), which will apply directly from 10 July 2027. It is written for lawyers, tax advisers and those responsible for compliance in law and tax firms. The general obligations of companies and dealers in goods under the German Anti-Money Laundering Act are explained on a separate page.
The first switch – obliged entity by profession or by mandate?
The German Anti-Money Laundering Act does not treat the legal and the tax advisory professions alike – and that is not a gap in the law but a deliberate basic decision. Tax advisers (Steuerberater), tax agents (Steuerbevollmächtigte), auditors and sworn accountants are obliged entities under Section 2(1) no. 12 GwG by virtue of their profession. The interpretation and application guidance of the Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers (Bundessteuerberaterkammer, BStBK), as of 1 January 2026, puts it unmistakably. Tax advisers are, as a rule, subject to all obligations under the GwG with their entire professional activity. For them, the question is therefore never whether the GwG applies, but only which individual duties are triggered in the specific engagement and which privileges limit them again. The same applies to professionals holding more than one qualification. Someone who is both a lawyer and a tax adviser is treated under the BStBK guidance as an obliged entity under no. 12 as soon as he or she also acts outwardly as a tax adviser. Merely calling oneself a defence counsel does not switch off the second professional qualification, what matters is the role in which one acts and the service actually rendered.
Lawyers (Rechtsanwälte), on the other hand, are obliged entities under Section 2(1) no. 10 GwG only insofar as they participate in certain catalogue transactions. These include in particular real estate and business transactions, the management of money, securities or other assets, the opening or management of accounts, the formation and management of companies and trust structures, financial or real estate transactions carried out in the name and on behalf of the client, advice on capital structure, mergers and acquisitions – and, since 2020, the provision of assistance in tax matters on a regular professional basis (Section 2(1) no. 10 lit. e GwG). Anyone who does not render any of these services in the specific engagement is, to that extent, simply not an obliged entity. In that engagement there is no GwG risk analysis, no GwG identification duty and no duty to file a suspicious transaction report. The lawyer’s professional secrecy under Section 203 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) and professional law applies in its ordinary scope, with the limits that professional law and other statutes draw in any event. Where the same lawyer performs catalogue activities in other engagements, the organisational duties of the firm remain unaffected. The status of obliged entity is determined per engagement, but the firm’s risk management is not switched on and off from one file to the next.
Rule of thumb for practice. With every new engagement, ask first whether you are an obliged entity here – because of your profession or because of this particular engagement. Anyone who speaks sweepingly of “adviser duties” has already set the first switch wrongly.
Objection, tax court action, criminal defence – why pure conduct of proceedings is not a GwG engagement
For lawyers who – for instance alongside a criminal law focus – occasionally conduct tax objection proceedings under Sections 347 et seq. of the German Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung, AO) or actions before the tax court, the position of the bar is clear. The interpretation and application guidance of the German Federal Bar (Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer, BRAK, 8th edition, as of June 2024) makes clear that the duties under the GwG always relate only to the catalogue transactions concerned. Conducting proceedings as such – administrative proceedings against the tax authority, civil litigation, criminal defence – triggers no obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering Act because there is no obliged entity status in the first place (para. 7). The guidance goes on to state that criminal tax defence is not a catalogue activity even where the substantive content of the defence touches on a catalogue activity (para. 33). The defence remains, if you like, contamination-proof.
What is decisive is the character of the engagement. Anyone who works retrospectively and in relation to proceedings – challenging an assessment, defending in criminal tax proceedings – does not provide assistance in tax matters on a regular professional basis within the meaning of the catalogue, even if the argument is rooted deep in substantive tax law. Assisting a client during a tax audit (Betriebsprüfung), by contrast, cannot be classified across the board. Whoever accompanies the client legally during the audit and then challenges its result in objection proceedings is conducting proceedings. Whoever, as a substantial service of his or her own, prepares the tax bases during the audit, corrects returns or provides ongoing tax advice may be providing assistance in tax matters on a regular professional basis. The BRAK guidance does not mention the tax audit expressly, but it asks whether tax advice is rendered repeatedly and as a permanent part of the practice, and it states that tax advice as a subordinate aspect of another engagement does not establish obliged entity status (para. 33). The position may differ where, alongside the defence, ongoing tax returns or subsequent declarations are prepared as an independent and substantial service. A separable declaratory activity is then added which can trigger Section 2(1) no. 10 lit. e GwG. This distinction belongs in the engagement letter and in the file – not merely in a justification given after the event.
A simple sequence serves as a quick test. First ask what characterises the engagement, because the specific activity is decisive, not the field of law. In the case of pure conduct of proceedings – objection, tax court action, criminal tax defence – the lawyer is not an obliged entity, and professional law and Section 203 StGB apply as they always do. In a mixed engagement, in which separable tax returns or subsequent declarations stand alongside the defence as a substantial service of the lawyer’s own, the declaratory tax part is classified separately and the allocation is documented in the engagement letter. In the case of a catalogue activity, the GwG duties apply from acceptance of the engagement, that is risk analysis, identification, documentation and, where relevant, the assessment of a reporting duty under Section 43 GwG.
When the GwG applies – duties with a sense of proportion, but documented
Where a catalogue activity exists – or where a tax adviser is concerned, who is always within the system anyway – the organisational chain of Sections 4 to 8 GwG applies, with risk management, risk analysis, internal safeguards and record-keeping duties. Added to this are the customer due diligence duties of Sections 10 to 12 GwG. They comprise the identification of the contracting party and of any person acting on its behalf, clarification of the beneficial owner, obtaining information on the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship, establishing whether a politically exposed person is involved, and the ongoing monitoring of the business relationship. As regards the beneficial owner, a holding of more than 25 per cent of the capital or voting rights is only one of the routes, alongside it Section 3 GwG places any control exercised in a comparable manner and acting at the instigation of another.
So far, so bureaucratic – but the law does not demand detective work. The risk-based approach means that the scope of the measures must correspond to the risk of the specific client and engagement. You do not need to chase after the client to search for whatever risks there might be. An unremarkable client may be treated unremarkably. There is no such thing as a fishing expedition into private affairs without cause. What there is, however, is the statutory duty to identify, to check the plausibility of the information provided, to screen for politically exposed persons and to monitor in a risk-appropriate manner, and that applies even where nothing stands out. And there is the duty to take seriously the risks that are on the table, such as crypto-assets, high-risk and sanctioned jurisdictions, opaque ownership chains, unusual payment channels, cash intensity or transactions without any discernible economic purpose. Anyone handling an engagement with a Russian connection must accept that sanctions lists can change a risk profile overnight – monitoring is not a one-off check at the start of the engagement.
A nuance that is underestimated in practice concerns small firms. Risk analysis and internal safeguards are statutory duties under Sections 4 to 6 GwG, not mere incidental obligations that one may neglect at one’s own risk. Their scope depends on the nature and size of the business, and the supervisory authority may order, for individual obliged entities or groups of them, that the provisions on internal safeguards be applied in a risk-appropriate manner (Section 6(9) GwG). On application it may also exempt an obliged entity from documenting the risk analysis if the specific risks are clearly recognisable and understood (Section 5(4) GwG). That is an exemption from documentation, not from recognising and assessing the risk. Anyone who handles risk-laden engagements and dispenses with any structure therefore has not only an evidential problem but possibly a breach of duty, which can be examined in the individual case. And even where the law prescribes no particular measure, the public prosecutor asks precisely this question in the investigation. What indications were there, and did anyone follow them up? Anyone who ignores visible risks is not working lean – they are inviting a later evidential problem.
Rule of thumb for practice. A decision can be as good as it likes – if it is not documented, how it was reached may be harder to reconstruct in an investigation. Compliance is not a paper shield, it is the memory of the firm.
A word on technology. Using AI to pre-sort risk classifications, to extract data or to screen lists can make sense. But beware of the black box. If an AI system classifies an engagement as high-risk without any traceable basis and that finding ends up in the file without comment, that assessment may be harder to correct later. AI results should therefore be marked as preliminary, checked for plausibility and, in the case of high-risk classifications or decisions not to report, approved by a responsible person. The black box must not become the truth of the file.
The suspicious transaction report – low threshold, strong privilege
Section 43(1) GwG requires an immediate report to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) where facts indicate that an asset connected with a business relationship, a brokerage transaction or a transaction derives from a criminal act that could constitute a predicate offence of money laundering, that a business event, a transaction or an asset is connected with terrorist financing, or that the contracting party has breached its duty to disclose whether it is acting for a beneficial owner. The value of the asset or the size of the transaction is irrelevant. The threshold is deliberately set below certain knowledge of an offence, an initial suspicion in the sense of criminal procedure is not required. What is required, however, are facts that indicate such a situation. A mere gut feeling without tangible indications is not a fact within the meaning of the statute. If that were all, the relationship of trust between adviser and client would be up for grabs. But it is not all.
For lawyers and tax advisers, Section 43(2) sentence 1 GwG suspends the reporting duty insofar as the matter relates to information they received in the course of legal advice or representation in legal proceedings (Rechtsberatung oder Prozessvertretung). The concept is broad. According to the BStBK guidance it covers out-of-court appeal proceedings, representation before the tax court, criminal tax matters, regulatory offence matters and advice on whether to bring or avoid proceedings, including the gathering of information before and after such proceedings (paras. 168 et seq.). This privilege is not a mere exemption – it is the flip side of the duty of confidentiality. Where it applies, there is no statutory reporting duty, and a report made without a statutory duty or other authority to disclose can breach the professional duty of confidentiality and be problematic under Section 203 StGB. The BStBK guidance therefore urges careful examination before any report (para. 178). Anyone contemplating disclosure must examine whether a statutory duty or authority exists or whether the client has released the adviser from confidentiality. What the law does not prohibit is an attempt to dissuade the client from an unlawful act, which under Section 47(4) GwG expressly does not count as prohibited tipping-off.
The exception to the privilege in Section 43(2) sentence 2 GwG requires that the obliged entity knows that the client has used or is using the legal advice or representation for the purpose of money laundering, terrorist financing or another criminal offence. It therefore also covers a misuse of the engagement that has already taken place, not only its planned continuation, and it is not limited to money laundering. At the same time the BStBK guidance makes clear that mere knowledge that the client has committed tax evasion and is now asking for representation is precisely not enough (para. 174). The line runs between “I can see risks” and “I know that my engagement is being instrumentalised”. Positive knowledge is more than a bad gut feeling, but it does not require the conviction of a court, let alone a conviction of the client. Two levels must be kept apart. Outside the privilege, for instance where information stems from purely transactional work, the low factual threshold of subsection 1 applies without any knowledge requirement. Within the privilege, the reporting duty revives only on positive knowledge, and even then a suspicious case within the meaning of subsection 1 must exist (BStBK para. 175). Anyone who, within the privileged area, reports in good faith after careful examination is protected by Section 48 GwG against civil, criminal and disciplinary liability, provided the report is not wilfully or grossly negligently untrue. That release protects the good-faith reporting of a matter under Section 43 GwG, it is not a general licence to disclose professional secrets.
An important exception applies in the real estate sector. Under Section 43(6) GwG and the GwG Real Estate Reporting Regulation (GwGMeldV-Immobilien), certain specified situations in acquisition transactions are reportable, irrespective of whether the information stems from legal advice or representation in proceedings – the ordinary privilege does not apply there. Even so, the report is not automatic. Under Section 7 GwGMeldV-Immobilien the reporting duty lapses if there are facts that rebut the typified indications. Those facts must be recorded and retained for supervisory review. The regulation was amended with effect from 17 February 2025, according to the FIU’s report the typified situations were made more precise by thresholds and overly broad situations were narrowed. The orders of magnitude remain sobering. According to the FIU annual report for 2025, 374,693 suspicious transaction reports were received, 364,232 of them from the financial sector, which by our own calculation is around 97 per cent. Lawyers filed 206 reports, compared with 223 the year before, tax advisers and tax agents 79. Reports are not proven offences and say nothing about the number of clients concerned. The low figure is no evidence of collective neglect of duty – it fits the catalogue approach and the advice privilege, even though such a link cannot be proven statistically.
Voluntary self-disclosure under Section 371 AO – no anti-money laundering panic button
Hardly any situation is misunderstood as often as the voluntary self-disclosure exempting from punishment (strafbefreiende Selbstanzeige) under Section 371 AO. Self-disclosure is, as a rule, not the beginning of money laundering but an attempt to clean up in criminal tax terms – an instrument of return to tax compliance. It neither triggers a suspicious transaction report automatically nor does it constitute money laundering itself. It guarantees nothing either, however. Whether it actually exempts from punishment depends on the requirements of Section 371 AO, and it works only for tax evasion, not for money laundering or other offences.
For the lawyer acting as criminal tax defence counsel, advice on self-disclosure as an instrument of defence and of avoiding proceedings is not a catalogue activity – in that situation the lawyer is not an obliged entity in the first place. That holds as long as the defence characterises the engagement. A lawyer who prepares the subsequent declarations for several years as an independent and substantial tax service must ask whether assistance in tax matters on a regular professional basis is being provided alongside the defence, and should separate the services in the engagement letter. For the tax adviser, self-disclosure changes nothing about the obliged entity status that exists anyway, but the BStBK guidance grants two reliefs that are decisive in practice. First, advice on self-disclosure, as legal advice, regularly falls under the reporting privilege. Second, the advisory engagement may as a rule be accepted even if the client has not yet been identified or the beneficial owner has not yet been clarified (para. 170). The legal basis is Section 10(9) sentence 3 GwG, which exempts legal advice and representation in proceedings from the prohibition on establishing or continuing a business relationship without the due diligence duties having been fulfilled. The urgency typical of self-disclosures, because grounds for exclusion loom and discovery is in the air, is the practical reason for this exception but not its statutory precondition. Its limit is drawn more narrowly than that of the reporting duty. It ends where the adviser knows that the legal advice or representation has deliberately been or is being used for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing, other offences are not mentioned in Section 10(9) GwG, unlike in Section 43(2) GwG. And the exception does not abolish the due diligence duties. Identification, clarification of the beneficial owner and risk classification must be completed afterwards, and a note on the reasons for the delayed fulfilment belongs in the file.
Particular anti-money laundering risks in a self-disclosure engagement may arise, for example, from tax refunds or tax credits actually paid out, crypto-assets of unclear origin, links to high-risk jurisdictions, transfers to third parties or structures that evidently serve concealment. These are not an exhaustive account of the reporting grounds under Section 43(1) GwG. Then the file needs a particularly clean legal analysis. But even then there is no automatic report, and just as little is there immunity. Self-disclosure does not protect the adviser against Section 261 StGB or against aiding and abetting under Section 27 StGB if he or she knowingly participates in shifting tainted assets.
Section 261 StGB – all-crimes approach, but a mere tax saving is not an object of the offence
Since the reform that took effect on 18 March 2021, Section 261 StGB no longer contains a catalogue of predicate offences. Any unlawful act can be a predicate offence of money laundering. The abstract reach is therefore enormous – and it occasionally tempts investigating authorities to deploy money laundering as a universal charge. For obliged entities under Section 2 GwG there is the further point that subsection 4 threatens commission in that capacity with a higher penalty. All the more important is a sober look at the link to a specific object. Money laundering presupposes an object that derives from the predicate offence.
This is precisely where the central relief for criminal tax law lies. Expenses merely saved through tax evasion are not a suitable object of money laundering according to the explanatory memorandum to the 2021 reform (Bundestag printed paper 19/24180, pp. 18 and 28). They are an arithmetical advantage within the overall assets, not a separable, identifiable object, and in the words of the memorandum they lack suitability for laundering because they were not acquired criminally at all. The memorandum expressly distinguishes this from the law on confiscation, whose concept of proceeds under Section 73 StGB is wider and captures saved expenses through the confiscation of a sum equal to their value. Anyone who has merely had too little tax assessed does not, for that reason alone, hold “laundered” assets. The relief, however, reaches no further than the arithmetical saving. The position is different for tax refunds or tax credits obtained through a criminal offence and actually paid out – for instance in VAT carousels or capital income withholding tax refunds – because there something actually flows out of the public purse, and according to the explanatory memorandum that inflow is a suitable object of the offence without further ado. And the position is different for any other criminally obtained assets that happen to be swimming along in a tax case. In terms of legal policy the question is in motion. On 12 August 2026 the Federal Cabinet adopted the government draft of a Customs Financial Justice Act (Zollfinanzgerechtigkeitsgesetz), which according to the Federal Government’s intention is to enter into force on 1 January 2027. That is a draft stage, not the law in force, and whether a mere tax saving will ever return to the money laundering offence has not been decided by it. How that could be constructed in a constitutionally sound way remains open in any event.
Fees, aiding and abetting, and the limits of advice “lege artis”
As regards defence counsel’s fees, the Federal Constitutional Court limited criminal liability early on (judgment of 30 March 2004, 2 BvR 1520/01), and in 2021 the legislature codified that line in Section 261 StGB, as the explanatory memorandum expressly records. Under Section 261(1) sentence 3 StGB, a criminal defence counsel who accepts a fee for his or her work acts intentionally in the cases of procuring for oneself or a third party and of keeping or using (sentence 1 nos. 3 and 4) only if, at the time of acceptance, he or she had certain knowledge of its origin. Under subsection 6 sentence 2, reckless money laundering is likewise excluded in those cases. The privilege is thus limited in two respects. It applies to the criminal defence counsel and to the acceptance of a fee, not to every activity of a defence counsel, and it applies to the variants in nos. 3 and 4, not to concealing, disguising or account structures designed to frustrate access. Active concealment and other forms of participation remain separately examinable, even for defence counsel. Outside a criminal defence role, the fee privilege applies neither to tax advisers nor to lawyers. What matters is the specific function as defence counsel, which tax advisers may exercise subject to the requirements of Section 392 AO. The link to a specific object remains decisive in every case.
Beyond the fee, the question of aiding and abetting through professionally neutral conduct arises. The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) addressed it again in the cum/ex context (order of 7 July 2025, 1 StR 484/24). According to that decision, neither everyday acts nor professionally typical acts are neutral in every case, an evaluative assessment of the individual case is required, and aiding and abetting can also be committed through incorrect accommodating opinions by lawyers and tax advisers. Conversely, not every legal opinion that strengthens the principal offender in his or her plan constitutes criminal aiding and abetting. Legal advice lege artis – on a complete set of facts, with a defensible legal view and without deliberately concealing weighty counter-arguments – remains permissible. Criminal aiding and abetting may, by contrast, arise where the adviser knowingly bases the opinion on an incomplete set of facts, deliberately omits weighty contrary views or delivers an accommodating opinion as a veneer of legitimacy for tax evasion he or she has recognised, and thereby intentionally assists that offence within the meaning of Section 27 StGB. Incomplete or ill-judged advice is therefore not automatically aiding and abetting. Nor is “aggressive” advice. The line does not lie at the inconvenience of the legal view but at the missing lege artis basis and at intent.
And this is where the circle closes back to compliance. Anti-money laundering compliance is no criminal law licence – anyone who carries on despite recognised indications of suspicion is not helped by the most beautiful risk analysis. But anyone who has taken the duties seriously, assessed the risks and promptly documented the state of knowledge at the time can later prove what he or she knew and did not know. That can weigh heavily on the question of recklessness and wilful blindness, but it reverses no burden of proof and guarantees nothing. In that sense the risk analysis is not an administrative burden but precautionary evidence.
Four situations at a glance
Where a lawyer conducts only objection proceedings or an action before the tax court, he or she is not an obliged entity as long as no catalogue activity is added. In that engagement there are no GwG duties, professional law and Section 203 StGB apply as they always do. A note on acceptance of the engagement recording that it is pure conduct of proceedings without tax declarations and without transactions costs two sentences and saves later discussions.
Where a lawyer defends in criminal tax proceedings, including advice on self-disclosure, there is no catalogue activity, the defence remains contamination-proof. Section 43 GwG does not apply. The fee must be examined separately under Section 261 StGB, with the threshold of certain knowledge applying to the acceptance of the fee, while active concealment and other forms of participation remain to be assessed in their own right. The defence mandate, the power of attorney, the limits of the services and the payment channel for the fee should be documented.
Where the lawyer in addition prepares tax returns or subsequent declarations as a substantial service of his or her own, a catalogue activity under Section 2(1) no. 10 lit. e GwG may exist. Due diligence duties and the risk analysis then apply, the reporting privilege must be examined for the legal advice, and the parts of the engagement must be separated and classified separately.
Where a tax adviser prepares a self-disclosure or represents the client in criminal tax proceedings, he or she is an obliged entity by profession. Due diligence duties apply in principle, the urgent engagement may be accepted under Section 10(9) sentence 3 GwG, the reporting privilege regularly applies, and the exception to the privilege requires positive knowledge and a suspicious case. In the real estate sector the typified reporting situations of Section 43(6) GwG apply, with the exception in Section 7 GwGMeldV-Immobilien. Urgency, subsequent fulfilment and clarification must be documented.
What is changing right now – GwGMeldV, the EU package and AMLA
Anyone setting up processes today should have three dates in the diary. Since 1 March 2026 the GwG Reporting Regulation of 26 August 2025 has been in force. Suspicious transaction reports must be submitted electronically through the procedure provided by the FIU, in structured XML format or in the fields provided for that purpose, with the information required by Section 3 of the regulation, with standardised reporting grounds and with attachments in a machine-readable format. Whether the form has been observed may be checked by the FIU using technical procedures (Section 4 GwGMeldV). The formal “invalidity” of defective reports still envisaged in the draft did not become law, and the regulation does not declare a technically incomplete report to be an omitted report. It rather provides fallback routes. If electronic reporting is temporarily impossible for technical reasons, the alternative transmission channels announced by the FIU on its website may be used (Section 2(4) GwGMeldV), in the event of a disruption of electronic data transmission the postal route is permitted, and to avoid undue hardship the FIU may on application approve transmission by post using the official form (Section 45(1) to (3) GwG). Anyone experiencing a disruption documents it and uses the fallback route rather than waiting. The regulatory offence in Section 56(1) no. 69 GwG presupposes a report that was not filed, or not filed correctly, completely or in time, together with fault, there is no new sanction arising from the regulation alone. Independently of any specific report, obliged entities must register electronically with the FIU (Section 45(1) sentence 2 GwG), which is done through the goAML Web reporting portal. Before that, it must be clarified whether obliged entity status exists at all. A professional practising solely as a lawyer who performs no catalogue activity in any engagement is not an obliged entity in that capacity and therefore does not have to register on that basis. Tax advisers, by contrast, fall within the profession-based category under Section 2(1) no. 12 GwG.
From 10 July 2027 the EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1624) will apply directly (Article 90). Until then the GwG remains decisive, and what the regulation changes does not yet apply today. According to the interpretation paper of the German Federal Bar (version of December 2025, in German), the catalogue logic essentially remains. Article 3 no. 3 of the regulation covers lawyers when they carry out financial or real estate transactions in the name and on behalf of the client or participate in the planning or execution of certain transactions, with crypto-assets and crypto-asset accounts now expressly mentioned, and in addition any natural or legal person who, as a principal business or professional activity, provides material aid, assistance or advice on tax matters. Two shifts are noteworthy. Obliged entities will in future be natural or legal persons when exercising these activities, which in the assessment of the German Federal Bar makes professional practice companies of lawyers (Berufsausübungsgesellschaften) obliged entities in their own right insofar as catalogue activities are carried out within them. And as regards beneficial ownership, Article 52 starts at a holding of 25 per cent or more, with indirect holdings calculated by multiplication along the chain of ownership and the results of several chains added together, while control by other means stands alongside. That can make more beneficial owners visible than today.
The advice and defence privilege is carried forward in Article 70(2) AMLR, but not word for word. Protected is information that the professional receives from or obtains on a client in the course of ascertaining the legal position for that client or defending or representing that client in, or concerning, judicial proceedings, including advice on instituting or avoiding proceedings. The exemption does not apply where the professional takes part in money laundering, its predicate offences or terrorist financing, provides legal advice for those purposes or knows that the client is seeking legal advice for those purposes, and knowledge or purpose may be inferred from objective, factual circumstances. In addition, member states may lift the exemption for certain types of transaction with a higher risk (Article 70(3)), so that rules on the model of today’s real estate regulation retain a European basis. Anyone hoping that from 2027 all legal advice will be generally exempt hopes in vain. The basic idea remains, the limits are drawn afresh.
The European authority AMLA has taken up its work in Frankfurt and on 1 January 2026 took over the anti-money laundering tasks of the European Banking Authority. It does not act on law firms through direct supervision but through guidelines and technical standards that progressively give concrete shape to the European rulebook. According to the authority’s own register (as of 4 September 2026), some drafts are still under consultation, others have been published as final reports, and the detailed development of the new rulebook is not yet complete. A gap analysis of one’s own processes in 2026 and 2027 is time well spent.
The common thread of this development can be drawn in a few dates. In 2017 the recast of the GwG with the risk-based approach, in 2020 the extension of the lawyers’ catalogue to assistance in tax matters and the first reporting regulation for the real estate sector, on 18 March 2021 the reform of Section 261 StGB with the all-crimes approach and the codified defence counsel privilege, in 2024 the EU anti-money laundering package, on 1 March 2026 the electronic, structured suspicious transaction report and on 10 July 2027 the directly applicable regulation. More obliged entities, lower thresholds, broader predicate offences – and yet a continuing, if each time newly surveyed, protection of legal advice and defence.
Frequently asked questions
Does a voluntary tax self-disclosure trigger a money laundering suspicious transaction report?
No, not automatically. Self-disclosure under Section 371 AO is typically legal advice aimed at clearing up criminal tax risks, and information from it regularly falls under the reporting privilege in Section 43(2) GwG. Within that privilege the reporting duty revives only if the adviser positively knows that the client has used or is using the engagement for money laundering, terrorist financing or another criminal offence, and a suspicious case under Section 43(1) GwG exists at the same time. Mere knowledge of a tax evasion already committed and the request for representation are not enough. Acquisition transactions under the GwGMeldV-Immobilien follow their own rules.
Do GwG duties apply when a lawyer lodges an objection against a tax assessment or sues before the tax court?
According to the German Federal Bar’s guidance, no. Pure objection and court proceedings are the conduct of proceedings and not a catalogue activity under Section 2(1) no. 10 GwG. That holds even where the argument presupposes substantive tax law. The position may differ where, alongside them, a separable and independent tax declaration is rendered as a substantial service.
Is a lawyer acting solely as criminal tax defence counsel an obliged entity under the GwG?
Not for an engagement limited to criminal tax defence, provided no catalogue activity is added and the professional is not also acting as a tax adviser. Criminal tax defence is not a catalogue activity – not even where its substantive content touches on a catalogue subject. What remains to be examined separately is the fee. Where the lawyer has certain knowledge of the tainted origin of the funds, Section 261 StGB may apply, recklessness is not sufficient for defence counsel’s acceptance of a fee. Active acts of concealment or participation in shifting tainted assets are not covered by the fee privilege and remain to be assessed in their own right.
Are “saved taxes” a suitable object of money laundering?
Under the law as it stands, no. The explanatory memorandum to the 2021 reform (Bundestag printed paper 19/24180) denies a suitable object of the offence in the case of a mere tax saving, because no separable and identifiable asset arises. Tax refunds or tax credits obtained through a criminal offence and actually paid out, by contrast, are real inflows of assets and can be the object of money laundering. A reform project for which a government draft is currently available changes nothing about the law in force.
How do lawyers and tax advisers differ under the German Anti-Money Laundering Act?
Tax advisers are obliged entities under Section 2(1) no. 12 GwG with their entire professional activity, lawyers only insofar as they perform catalogue activities under Section 2(1) no. 10 GwG. In representation in proceedings and in criminal defence the two professions meet in the result. The lawyer is not an obliged entity there in the first place, the tax adviser formally remains one but is protected by the reporting privilege in Section 43(2) GwG and the exception in Section 10(9) sentence 3 GwG, while his or her organisational and due diligence duties otherwise continue to apply.
Do I have to decline an engagement if the client cannot yet be fully identified?
As a rule a business relationship may not be established or continued if the general due diligence duties under Section 10(1) nos. 1 to 4 GwG cannot be fulfilled (Section 10(9) sentence 1 GwG). For legal advice and representation in proceedings, sentence 3 provides an exception which is not tied to urgency but in practice mainly concerns urgent engagements such as a self-disclosure under time pressure. It ends where the adviser knows that the legal advice has deliberately been or is being used for money laundering or terrorist financing. The due diligence duties do not lapse, they must be completed afterwards, and the reasons belong documented in the file.
Does anti-money laundering compliance protect me from criminal liability?
Not as such. Compliance is no criminal law licence, and anyone who carries on despite recognised indications of suspicion can incur criminal liability. But compliance that is practised and promptly documented proves the state of knowledge at the time and can weigh heavily on the question of recklessness and wilful blindness. It is no guarantee, and it reverses no burden of proof.
Confidential initial assessment
Rudolph Rechtsanwälte has for many years defended clients in criminal tax matters and in white-collar criminal law – including money laundering allegations against members of the legal and tax professions – and advises law firms, tax firms and companies on criminal law compliance. As certified specialist lawyers for criminal law and for tax law we know both sides, the preventive logic of the German Anti-Money Laundering Act and the defence perspective in the investigation. For a confidential initial assessment you can reach us through our contact page.
Sources and further references
The provisions of the German Anti-Money Laundering Act in force are available (in German) at gesetze-im-internet, in particular Section 2 GwG on obliged entities, Section 3 GwG on the beneficial owner, Sections 4, 5 and 6 GwG on risk management, Section 10 GwG on due diligence duties, Section 43 GwG on the suspicious transaction report, Section 45 GwG on form and registration, Section 47 GwG on the prohibition of tipping-off, Section 48 GwG on the release from liability for good-faith reports and Section 56 GwG on regulatory offences. On the criminal law side, Section 261 StGB and Section 27 StGB are decisive, and for the legislative history the explanatory memorandum of the government draft on the reform of Section 261 StGB (Bundestag printed paper 19/24180). The GwG Reporting Regulation was promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette 2025 I No. 200 and is available at gesetze-im-internet, as is the GwGMeldV-Immobilien with the exception in Section 7. Registration takes place through the goAML Web reporting portal, and the customs administration provides supplementary FIU guidance on registration.
Supervisory practice is explained in the interpretation and application guidance of the German Federal Bar (8th edition, as of June 2024), in particular paras. 7 and 33, and in the interpretation and application guidance of the Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers (as of 1 January 2026), in particular paras. 1 and 168 to 180, both in German. For European law, reference should be made to Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 with Articles 3, 52, 70 and 90, the interpretation paper of the German Federal Bar on the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (version of December 2025, in German), the AMLA register of regulatory instruments and the EBA announcement on the handover of its mandates to AMLA. Reporting volumes are documented in the FIU annual report 2025 (table 3, in German), and the national reform project in the Federal Ministry of Finance’s legislative dossier on the Customs Financial Justice Act together with the press release on the Cabinet decision of 12 August 2026, both in German.