Tax Advisers 2026: Answering Service, Voicemail or AI on the Phone? Handling Client Calls in Deadline Season and Meeting Section 62a StBerG

In short: In a tax firm, an AI phone assistant takes the calls that would otherwise interrupt payroll or the annual accounts: appointment requests, questions about documents and availability, new enquiries and callback requests. It gives no tax advice and does not confirm to strangers who is a client. Because the provider takes part in your professional work, you need a confidentiality agreement in text form under Section 62a StBerG in addition to the data processing agreement. With EchoCall the agent starts at €75 a month for 250 call minutes.

We rewrote this article in October 2026. The previous version cited a survey by the German Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers (73 per cent of firms complain about phone overload) and a case study from Bavaria. We could not verify either. The details on server location and encryption were wrong as well, and so was a handover to DATEV, Addison and Agenda. The servers are at IONOS in Frankfurt and Karlsruhe. There is no ready-made connection to tax software, so no processing status either.

The phone in a tax firm: why it becomes a bottleneck in deadline season

On 1 January 2026 the German chambers of tax advisers had 105,953 registered members, including 89,549 tax advisers. [1] Over the same period the number of trainee tax clerks fell by 1.3 per cent to 17,081. Chamber president Hartmut Schwab says the profession must not let up in attracting young people. [1] If you cannot fill a post in the front office or in casework, the phone is shared out among everyone else.

Calls do not arrive evenly. They follow the deadlines. Advance VAT returns are due by the tenth day after the end of the return period. [2] Payroll runs every month. Annual returns have their own filing deadlines, with different dates for clients who use a tax adviser and those who file themselves. [3] Before each of these dates, clients ring to ask whether their receipts have arrived, what is still missing and when they have to pay. That is exactly when the team is busy with work that has to be finished before the deadline.

Every call is an interruption. An example calculation with assumptions, not a measurement: 25 calls a day, each with three minutes of conversation and two minutes until the clerk is back into the payroll, add up to just over two hours a day. Count your own calls for a week and you have your own figure.

Features and process at a glance are on our page AI phone assistant for law and tax firms. This article goes deeper: which calls the agent takes, what it must not say and what professional law requires.

Voicemail, answering service or AI on the phone: what suits a tax firm?

Looking for an answering service for tax advisers or a better voicemail? There are three options. They differ less in price than in what the caller ends up with.

Often overlooked: the duties under Section 62a StBerG do not only apply to AI. They apply equally to an answering service and to a cloud phone system whose servers hold your voice messages.

And a chatbot for tax advisers? The same content can also run as a chat agent on your website. It shows the AI notice automatically, your team can take over conversations in the Live Inbox, and the same rules apply as on the phone.

Six kinds of client calls and what the agent does with each

What the agent must not say on the phone

Confidentiality does not start with the tax return. Under Section 57(1) StBerG it covers "everything that has become known in the exercise of the profession" (our translation). [4] That includes the mere fact that someone is a client. On the phone the agent cannot check who is calling. This leads to three rules you write into the prompt:

1. No information about engagements. The agent does not confirm whether someone is a client and gives no content, amounts or deadlines from an engagement. Not even when the caller says they are the spouse or the managing director.
2. No tax advice. It does not answer questions such as "Can I deduct my home office?" for the individual case. It takes them as a callback request. It may share general content from your knowledge base, for example which receipts you need for an income tax return.
3. Deadline matters go to a person. Anything involving an assessment, an audit notice or enforcement is transferred at once or marked as urgent.

There is also a rule for you: client data does not belong in the knowledge base. It holds services, office hours, checklists and procedures. What the agent does not know about individual engagements, it cannot give away.

Professional law and data protection: Sections 57 and 62a StBerG, Section 203 StGB, GDPR

Anyone who takes part must be bound. Section 203 of the German Criminal Code names tax advisers explicitly (subsection 1 no. 3). Anyone who discloses a client secret without authority risks imprisonment of up to one year or a fine. [6] Disclosure to people who take part in the professional work is allowed, as far as their work requires it (subsection 3 sentence 2). If such a person then discloses a secret without authority, the adviser is liable too if they did not make sure that person was bound to secrecy (subsection 4 sentence 2 no. 1). [6]

Section 62a StBerG sets out how. [5]

• Access to protected facts only as far as the service requires (subsection 1).
• Choose the provider carefully and end the collaboration if they do not comply (subsection 2).
• A contract in text form that binds the provider to confidentiality with a warning about the criminal consequences, limits access to what is necessary and states whether they may bring in other people (subsection 3).
• If the service is provided abroad, access is only allowed if the protection of secrets there is comparable to the protection in Germany (subsection 4).
• If the service directly serves a single engagement, the client must consent (subsection 5). A phone assistant for the whole firm does not usually serve a single engagement.
• Data protection law is not affected (subsection 8). The data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR comes on top. It does not replace the confidentiality agreement. [7]

What you should ask the provider for:

1. a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR,
2. a confidentiality agreement in text form under Section 62a(3) StBerG, before you start,
3. a list of sub-processors with their seat and place of processing, explicitly including speech recognition and the language model, so that you can carry out the check under Section 62a(4),
4. details on deletion periods and on how you can store less.

At EchoCall the servers are at IONOS in Frankfurt and Karlsruhe. You will find the data processing agreement at echocall.de/en/avv, and the technical and organisational measures, the sub-processor overview and the transfer impact assessment in the Trust Center. For calls where as little as possible should be stored, the EchoHub has a zero-PII mode. You agree the confidentiality agreement under Section 62a StBerG with us before you start, as you would with any other provider.

Every connected tool is another service provider. If the agent sends call notes to your team by email, Microsoft Teams or Slack, client data ends up there too. Check every tool as you check the phone assistant.

AI notice. Since 2 August 2026, callers must be told that they are talking to an AI (Article 50 AI Act). [8] For a phone agent, you write the notice into its first message yourself. The editor in the EchoHub reminds you, and the help centre has example sentences. For example: "Weber tax advisers, you are speaking to our digital phone assistant. How can I help?"

What an AI phone assistant costs a tax firm

With EchoCall you pay for call minutes, around €0.30 per minute, with no setup fee. [9] The phone number and telephony costs are not included in the plan prices.

Work out your need like this: calls per day the agent takes × minutes per call × working days a month. Two examples with assumptions: a sole practitioner forwards only when busy and after hours, 8 calls × 2.5 minutes × 21 days makes 420 minutes, so the Basic plan for €150 is enough. A firm with 15 staff lets the agent answer first, 25 × 2.5 × 21 makes around 1,310 minutes, which fits the Professional plan for €450.

Setup in six steps

1. Create an account. In the EchoHub with 30 voice minutes and 30 chat conversations for 14 days, and the credit card is verified with €1.
2. Fill the knowledge base. Services, office hours, receipts checklists and what the firm does not do. The quickest way is your website address, which is re-read at a fixed interval, plus a PDF. No client data.
3. Set the conversation rules. The three rules above, the AI notice in the first message and a list of what counts as a deadline matter.
4. Connect the calendar. Google Calendar, Outlook, Calendly or Cal.com. Release only the appointment types the agent may book, such as first meeting and review.
5. Number and forwarding. Book a number for the agent in the EchoHub and set up forwarding in your phone system, for example when busy, after 20 seconds or outside office hours. For deadline matters, store the number the agent transfers to. The codes for forwarding from a mobile are in our article Answering the Phone in the Trades 2026.
6. Call it yourself. Run through five cases: new enquiry, appointment, processing status, a supposed spouse and an audit notice. Only when all of them work does the forwarding go live.

Where the agent reaches its limits

• Individual tax questions. An adviser answers those. The agent makes sure the question arrives complete.
• Upset clients. Someone facing an attachment order wants a person. The agent transfers the call or arranges a quick callback.

Frequently asked questions about the phone in a tax firm

May a tax firm use an AI phone assistant?

Yes, if the conditions are met. The provider takes part in your professional work. Under Section 62a StBerG you need a contract in text form that binds them to confidentiality with a warning about the criminal consequences. On top of that come a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR and the AI notice at the start of the call.

Do I need my clients' consent?

Usually not. Section 62a(5) StBerG requires it when a service directly serves a single engagement. A phone assistant for the whole firm does not normally do that. If the service is provided abroad, the protection there must be comparable.

What does an AI phone assistant cost a tax firm?

With EchoCall from €75 a month for 250 call minutes, around €0.30 per minute, with no setup fee. The phone number and telephony costs come on top. How to work out your need is explained in the cost section above.

Can the agent access DATEV and give the processing status?

No. EchoCall has no ready-made connection to DATEV, Addison or Agenda. The agent sees no client file and no processing status, which is more of an advantage for confidentiality. It takes the question as a callback request. It books appointments in Google Calendar, Outlook, Calendly or Cal.com and sends call notes by email, Microsoft Teams or Slack. You connect your own workflows via webhooks, Zapier or Make.

Answering service or AI: which is better for tax advisers?

It depends on what the caller needs at the end. An answering service takes messages. The AI assistant also books appointments and answers questions from your knowledge base, in the evening too. The duties under Section 62a StBerG apply to both in the same way.

Do clients notice they are talking to an AI?

Yes. The AI Act has required a notice since August 2026, and you write it into the agent's first sentence.

Sources

1. German Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers (BStBK), press release 05/2026 of 23 April 2026, professional statistics 2025 (members, tax advisers and trainees), in German: bstbk.de
2. Section 18 German VAT Act (UStG), taxation procedure, in German: gesetze-im-internet.de
3. Section 149 German Fiscal Code (AO), filing of tax returns, in German: gesetze-im-internet.de
4. Section 57 German Tax Advisers Act (StBerG), general professional duties, in German: gesetze-im-internet.de
5. Section 62a German Tax Advisers Act (StBerG), use of services, in German: gesetze-im-internet.de
6. Section 203 German Criminal Code (StGB), violation of private secrets, in German: gesetze-im-internet.de
7. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Article 28: eur-lex.europa.eu
8. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), Article 50: eur-lex.europa.eu
9. EchoCall pricing: echocall.de/en/pricing

All links were checked on 6 October 2026. This post is not legal advice. Clarify individual questions of professional law with your chamber of tax advisers.

Read next

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• AI Phone Assistant for Small Businesses 2026: costs compared with an answering service and a mini-job
• EU AI Act 2026: What the AI Disclosure Duty Means for Voice and Chat Systems