Can I rely on a Bulgarian tax adviser?

Not without checking — and this is one of the most important sentences on this site. In Bulgaria, tax adviser is not a protected title. There is no chamber, no licence, no professional supervision and no examination anyone must pass before putting that sign on the door. Whoever calls themselves a tax adviser here says exactly as much about their qualification as a taxi driver does. What is regulated in Bulgaria is the lawyer, the notary and the registered auditor; those three titles have supervision behind them, tax adviser does not. Three consequences follow. First, liability: professional indemnity insurance is not required and is rare in practice. If something goes wrong, you carry the loss. In Germany a tax adviser must be insured under section 67 StBerG, the chamber supervises this and will even name the insurer to an injured party on request. Second, price: there is no fee schedule, fees are freely negotiable, and because no professional body enforces comparability, quotes for the same work differ widely. Get the scope of work and the price in writing before you instruct anyone. Third, and this is the costly one: foreign tax law. A Bulgarian adviser is trained in Bulgarian law. German international tax law — exit taxation under section 6 AStG, extended limited tax liability under section 2 AStG, the concept of residence under section 8 AO — is neither part of their training nor of their examination. Do not expect reliable answers there. Nor are they allowed to give them: professional assistance in German tax matters is reserved under section 5 StBerG to those listed in section 3 StBerG. Anyone sitting in Bulgaria and explaining how your German departure is taxed crosses that line. The conclusion is simple: keep the two legal systems apart. Bulgarian law is settled by a specialist in Bulgaria, German law by a specialist in Germany, and the difficult case by both together. Whoever promises you both from one hand is promising too much. Svetlana does not give tax advice and is not permitted to. What she has is the selection: she knows who works honestly on this coast, and she makes the introduction. Those names are in no register.