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TaxTech Weekly: DATEV shuts down DIY tax app KLARTAX

TaxTech Weekly: DATEV shuts down DIY tax app KLARTAX 🎄

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DATEV shuts down DIY tax app KLARTAX

We're sure that every faithful reader of this much-loved newsletter has felt the rumblings of the German DIY tax market over the past few days. If not, we're here to bring you up to speed:

The leading German accounting and tax software solution for tax advisors, DATEV eG (Si apre in una nuova finestra), has announced that it will end its KLARTAX (Si apre in una nuova finestra) B2C efforts in the German private tax return market at the end of 2025.

Launched in 2020, KLARTAX was DATEV's ambitious first attempt to enter the consumer market in Germany. Specifically, KLARTAX was a (web) application for consumers to do their own personal tax returns in Germany, similar to well-known DIY solutions such as smartsteuer GmbH (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Taxfix (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and WISO Steuer (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

What DATEV thinks

According to DATEV magazine (Si apre in una nuova finestra), one of the initial reasons for this effort was to prevent other platforms from interfering between consumers and – DATEV's core market – tax advisors. Another reason was not to lose the market for simple private tax returns.

For these reasons, KLARTAX was part of DATEV's general "tax platform strategy". Other projects in this strategy include DATEV SmartExperts, a search for tax advisors, and DATEV Meine Steuern, a service for clients to provide their tax advisors with tax-relevant information and documents in digital form.

But DATEV is rethinking this initial approach. The reasons have changed. Knowledge from KLARTAX has found its way into SmartExperts / Meine Steuern, so DATEV no longer sees any value in maintaining KLARTAX and is shutting it down.

In concrete terms, this means that new registrations will no longer be accepted. New tax years, such as the upcoming tax year 2024, will no longer be supported – at least if you actually want to file a tax return. All data will be deleted at the end of next year.

A look at the market

DATEV's withdrawal from the German DIY tax filing market sends mixed signals to competitors. It shows that establishing such a product is not only about the core tax functionality and the sense of security it provides – both of which DATEV arguably excels in. While these are important fundamentals, there are other relevant issues such as ease of use and reaching customers through modern marketing efforts.

In such a crowded market, with the aforementioned big players and newcomers such as CHECK24 Vergleichsportal (Si apre in una nuova finestra)'s SteuerCHECK and Taxefy® (Si apre in una nuova finestra), it is clearly not easy to gain an edge over the competition – even with the heft that DATEV brings to the table.

It also raises the question of how many players are really needed and how many can actually survive, given that Taxfix acquired Steuerbot (Si apre in una nuova finestra) last year, CHECK24 is offering its DIY tax tool for free and the German government is constantly stepping up its efforts to simplify the tax system (Si apre in una nuova finestra) – making the problems these modern solutions are trying to solve smaller.

What to make of it

In the end, it may have been the right decision for DATEV to abandon its ambitious KLARTAX project, learn the lessons, focus on what it has and build on that. But having tried to conquer the DIY market with KLARTAX, DATEV should be careful not to let the DIY competition encroach too much on its own B2B market by letting them move unhindered from easy-to-use applications for individuals to easy-to-use tax software for tax advisors. It's a move that won't happen overnight, but it's well underway with Taxfix's expert service (Si apre in una nuova finestra) or Kontist by Ageras (Si apre in una nuova finestra)'s early attempt at a scalable tax service for the self-employed.

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Ageras (Si apre in una nuova finestra)' acquisition of French Shine (Si apre in una nuova finestra) gets approval; eyes cross-border expansion (Cision (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

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DATEV's CEO Prof. Dr. Robert Mayr (Si apre in una nuova finestra) looks back to 2024 and ahead to 2025 (DATEV magazin (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

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Ben Borodach (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on how to apply AI in complex domains. Ben is the CEO of april (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 🇺🇸, an AI driven, embedded tax software. april has recently expanded its embedded offerings with the launch of their filing service: aprilPro (Fast Company (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

🇬🇧 TaxTech of the Week: Briefcase

London-based Briefcase (Si apre in una nuova finestra), which recently secured three million dollars in seed funding (Si apre in una nuova finestra), joins the latest wave of AI-powered accounting startups. Investors include Earlybird, Tiny, Entrepreneur First and angels like Charlie Songhurst (Si apre in una nuova finestra), the founders of French company Pennylane (Si apre in una nuova finestra), and scouts from Sequoia and a16z.

The Briefcase team wants to redefine the way accounting is done. They are building a platform that automates the time-consuming aspects of accounting, from bookkeeping to month-end closing, using technologies such as multimodal AI, agentic workflows and embeddings.

They're currently on a rapid growth trajectory, having partnered with several accountancy firms in the UK and claiming to have a runway of over 24 months.

Take a look at their website (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to find out all about them. We will certainly be following any future developments.

🎩 Jobs

Online-Marketing (Si apre in una nuova finestra) @ Blockpit AG (🇦🇹)

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Head of Product (Si apre in una nuova finestra) @ Pennylane (🇫🇷)

Senior Product Manager (Si apre in una nuova finestra) @ Pennylane (🇫🇷)

Steuer-Fachangestellte oder Steuerfachwirte (Si apre in una nuova finestra) @ Steuer- und Anwaltskanzlei Boldt (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (🇩🇪)

Junior Steuerfachangestellte:r (Si apre in una nuova finestra) @ Taxfix (🇩🇪)

🤖 LinkedIn Bits

Lars Bohn (Si apre in una nuova finestra) announces launch of TaxTech consultancy kallman (Si apre in una nuova finestra), a new VAT process consultancy for integrations into SAP and other systems (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

tax-tech.de (Si apre in una nuova finestra) publishes: KI in Kanzleien-Magazin Spezial (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

bimetrics (Si apre in una nuova finestra) releases update for AI-based e-invoicing recognition (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

Orbitax (Si apre in una nuova finestra) releases version 8.5 of its Orbital International Tax Platform (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

French Pennylane grows fast with over 1.000 new company sign-ups daily (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

Markus Thomas Boldt (Si apre in una nuova finestra) shares vision of a new digital tax consultancy for start-ups (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

TaxTech Chatter: French Indy (Si apre in una nuova finestra) tries to poach Shine customers after Ageras acquisition (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

Berlin-based mika (Si apre in una nuova finestra) opens waitlist for their beta product launch, offering an AI-enabled accounting solution (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

Adsum (Si apre in una nuova finestra) releases InstantVAT, so that Intuit QuickBooks (Si apre in una nuova finestra) users have the possibility to get their VAT refunds within 24 hours (Link (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

💡 Update

We're going into hibernation for the next few weeks. Thank you for almost 450 followers on LinkedIn, over 300 newsletter subscribers and the support over at tax&bytes (Si apre in una nuova finestra). We really appreciate all your support and hope to keep you engaged with our tailored TaxTech content. Enjoy the rest of the year and the start of 2025. See you 💜

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