WTS, a global full-service provider of tax, financial & deal advisory, is gaining a new team of 3 employees led by the social insurance specialist Kerstin Kind. In doing so, WTS is strengthening its HR Taxes service line and is looking to significantly expand its increasingly developing advisory focus on social insurance in the future.
Kerstin Kind joins WTS from her role as Director at KPMG Frankfurt, where she has held various positions in the field of social insurance for 12 years, most recently leading the social insurance team. Ms Kind is joined by two colleagues; Ms Justine Pappert (lawyer specialising in social insurance funds) and Elina Kristiansen.
The new colleagues will complement the existing team for employment and social insurance law under the leadership of the lawyer and director Otfrid Böhmer and will be integrated into the HR Taxes service line. With this addition, WTS now has a team of eight social insurance specialists.
Philipp Besson, WTS Partner and Head of the HR Taxes service line, views the latest additions as an important strategic development in the field of personal tax and legal advisory at WTS and explains: "Our new colleagues bring a wealth of practical experience in the field of national and international social insurance and are therefore a perfect complement to the existing team. The areas of responsibility range from fictitious self-employment to health checks required under social insurance law, due diligence and questions relating to the artist's social insurance fund. We are also gaining expertise in pension advice, since Ms Kind and Ms Pappert are both registered pension consultants. Social insurance is currently one of our major growth areas. There are also many interfaces with payroll and income tax, especially following external audits, but also in the field of global mobility, for example, the Global Expatriate Services division led by WTS Partner Frank Dissen."
Martin Loibl, WTS Partner and Co-Head of the ITP service line (International Tax & Permanent Establishments) views the reinforcement in the field of international project and permanent establishment advisory as particularly important and adds: "Our approach in ITP is to offer holistic advisory in all applicable tax and legal issues. We are therefore following the ever-increasing wish of our clients to receive comprehensive legal and tax advice from a single source. Social insurance issues and, above all, the international aspects are clearly part of this. Our clients are acting with increasing caution to ensure that the rules and regulations, which are often highly complex, are always fully complied with. Nasty surprises, such as employees who are stuck abroad due to non-compliance to regulations, the exclusion of public tenders or fines, must simply no longer happen in this field."
