SteffenPartner
Client login

Insights

A Deadly Tax Audit

Typical: it's the premiere, the opening, and the premiere DVD that the chef and guests are eagerly awaiting is locked inside a car — together with the only key. Before that, five months of daily production work. An artist juggling appointments, and an entire tax advisory group working through the nights as well — most of the time, at least. The result was our crime story "Die Blonde und der Betriebsprüfer" ("The Blonde and the Tax Auditor"), and on the premiere evening the DVD was, in the end, shown in the newly opened conference room after all. Word evidently got around: in October 2009, Steuerberater Magazin reported on the event, the film, and how it came to be.

2 min readUpdated: 2016-07-26
Press

https://steffen-partner.de/sup-media/uploads/2009_sup-_wm-tv_tatort-steuern-2.mp4

We modernised our large conference room — extensively. So an opening event was called for. Everything we could think of seemed too dull. So we shot a film. Not a film about us, not an image video — no, we made a crime drama. Under the title "Tatort Steuern" ("Crime Scene: Taxes"), it is intended to grow into an entire series. We gave episode one the title "Die Blonde und der Betriebsprüfer" ("The Blonde and the Tax Auditor"). The idea: to convey tax knowledge — here on the topic of tax audits — in an entertaining way. We had set ourselves quite a task. Five months of stress began with an unaffordable budget proposal. That called for restructuring expertise: actors cut, except for the lead inspector. All other roles are played by our staff, our families and ourselves. Screenplay: written by us. Assistant director, camera and so on: us. Only direction, sound and editing were left in the capable hands of a friend, the Berlin director and artist Stefan Deigmann. Artists and Steuerberater (German Certified Tax Advisors) — well, you can imagine what was bound to happen. We work to deadlines; artists work at night, or whenever inspiration strikes. So we simply slept five months less, and the artist kept a few appointments. But we pushed through scene by scene. We had completely underestimated the scale of such a film. steffen_partner-wmtv-tatort-steuern

But we did not give up; we made it at the last second — even though, on the very evening of the premiere, the DVD containing the film was sitting in a locked car, together with the car key. The film — and with it the artist — arrived with a slight delay, but they arrived. Neither the guests nor the gourmet chef, Stefan Manier of Gasthaus Stromberg in Waltrop, whom we had invited and engaged for the film premiere and the conference room opening, had to be sent home. The premiere began with a delay fitting for the project. And it sparked such enthusiasm that we ended up opening our new conference room three times in a row. But all eyes were on our very own crime scene. Word of the enthusiasm evidently spread as far as Steuerberater Magazin, which reported on our project in great detail in October. Film blood, cold sweat and premiere fever are recounted there in full. Feel free to read more. By the way, the conference room is still there — if you would like to take a look, just get in touch. And we should still be able to find the odd DVD of our crime story too.

Back to overview