Do they check ARD ZDF bill payment during de-registration in Frankfurt if a person is leaving the country? I came to Frankfurt in Jul 2019. I lived in an apartment from Jul'19-Feb'20. During this period, I had some amount to pay to ARD ZDF. Eight months after moving to a new apartment (Oct'20), I de-registered from my previous contribution number and registered to my new landlord's contribution number (I live in WG apartment and owner pays the ARD ZDF bill). During this period from (Mar'20-Oct'20), I received the ARD bill at my new address but with my old contribution number. Now in Oct'20, I received a letter from ARD saying to pay the balance through FEB'20. I did so, and after 3 days, I received a letter saying that my contribution number account is balanced. I asked them the same thing on a phone call and was informed I don't have to pay anything. But somehow I am not convinced. So my question is: while doing a de-registration, will the city office check if any amount is pending from ARD in my name? Also, if de-registration is given to me from the city office, will that mean I am all good in ARD ZDF's books?
The registration office does not have access to your GEZ bill. They cannot deny you deregistration, but also cannot tell you whether your debts are settled. You might prefer to clarify this matter with the GEZ in writing rather than over phone, since you can more easily machine-translate an email or letter.
Labor Code §70 states that (1) Where a trade union that is the bargaining agent for employees in a bargaining unit so requests, there shall be included in the collective agreement between the trade union and the employer of the employees a provision requiring the employer to deduct from the wages of each employee in the unit affected by the collective agreement, whether or not the employee is a member of the union, the amount of the regular union dues and to remit the amount to the trade union forthwith. so yes, it is legal to deduct union dues. There is no requirement to notify a prospective employee that they will be required to be a member of a union. The employer is required to inform you of deductions for taxes and union dues, under §254, when they pay you, which is why you know that you were a member of a union. That is what labor law gives you, but a union contract could impose other obligations on the employer. It is a matter of public record that a certain workplace is unionized, so you can find out, they just don't have to volunteer that information. There is no statutory limit on union dues, that is a matter set by the union.
As written, your question seems to ask for legal advice in a specific case. That would be off-topic. If you are asking strictly as a hypothetical: In germany, there is supposed to be the Bestellerprinzip for services of a real state agent (whoever retains the agent pays the fees). This was clarified in the Gesetz zur Regelung der Wohnungsvermittlung as changed in 2015. Landlords and real estate agents are frequently trying to get around it, but getting the legal construction of the contracts wrong would mean a substantial fine.
The university has a legal obligation to collect certain data from attendees, including employees an visitors. It has decided to keep these records in digital form, and offers a smartphone app as a convenience. The university has outsourced the data processing activity to a third party. This is perfectly legal under the GDPR, if that third party is contractually bound to only process the data as instructed, and not for their own purposes. Whereas the university acts as a data controller (Verantwortlicher), the third party would be a data processor (Auftragsverarbeiter). I have some doubts though whether an app or a website is indeed the solution that offers the best data protection, especially taking into account the GDPR's data minimization principle. Requiring updates when entering or leaving any room is potentially excessive. Given the sensitivity of the data, the university should have performed a data protection impact assessment to weigh the consequences of this measure. At least for employees, the measure would likely have to be approved by the union (Personalrat) as well.
The EU VAT directive has harmonized rules for invoices. Relevant for your question: Article 226 requires, among others, that the invoice contains the customer's VAT identification number, as referred to in Article 214, under which the customer received a supply of goods or services in respect of which he is liable for payment of VAT, or received a supply of goods as referred to in Article 138 If the customers receive invoices by electronic means they are supposed to archive the electronic invoice (and not a printout). They are not allowed to alter it in any way for archiving purposes by Article 246 The authenticity of the origin and the integrity of the content of the invoices stored, as well as their legibility, must be guaranteed throughout the storage period. In respect of the invoices referred to in the second subparagraph of Article 233(1), the details they contain may not be altered and must remain legible throughout the storage period. (where Article 233(1) refers to electronically received invoices.) The rules where put in place to combat VAT fraud – putting the VAT number of both parties on the invoice makes it a bit harder. If you were allowed to alter invoices before giving them to the authorities you would circumvent the entire purpose.
Probably not until and unless the process server gets the correct address and actually serves you. Then the documents should explain the matter fully. If the person who was attempted to be served took note of the court involved, and told you what court it was, you could call the Clerk of the Court and inquire. Otherwise you would need to ask every possible court, which would take a great deal of time and effort. You have not been lawfully served (at least not in most US jurisdictions) until you have been served in person, or perhaps by mail, or by publication in a newspaper, or in some other way considered lawful in your jurisdiction, but serving a person at your old address is not likely to be valid service. (Valid methods differ from one jurisdiction to another, and in some situations differ by the kind of case involved.) If the person at your old address gave the server your new address, s/he will probably be along shortly. If a process server is given an address by the client (plaintiff), s/he may well go there first, and only do research later in case the first address is wrong. One need not worry about it until the papers are served, but it might be wise to read the legal ads in any nearby large newspapers for a few weeks, in case of service by publication. The papers should give the name of a court, and perhaps the name of a judge. You can call the clerk of the court and find out if the papers are legit. There may well be a docket no or case no or some other identifying umber, as well. This will help in verification. Docketed cases may be listed on a court web site. A comment asks is service by publication is still possible. It can be. According to the Michigan Court Rules Rule 2.106 (D): (D) Publication of Order; Mailing. If the court orders notice by publication, the defendant shall be notified of the action by (1) publishing a copy of the order once each week for 3 consecutive weeks, or for such further time as the court may require, in a newspaper in the county where the defendant resides, if known, and if not, in the county where the action is pending; and (2) sending a copy of the order to the defendant at his or her last known address by registered mail, return receipt requested, before the date of the last publication. If the plaintiff does not know the present or last known address of the defendant, and cannot ascertain it after diligent inquiry, mailing a copy of the order is not required. In addition, subrule (E) provides that: If the court orders notice by posting, the defendant shall be notified of the action by (1) posting a copy of the order in the courthouse and 2 or more other public places as the court may direct for 3 continuous weeks or for such further time as the court may require; and (2) sending a copy of the order to the defendant at his or her last known address by registered mail, return receipt requested, before the last week of posting. If the plaintiff does not know the present or last known address of the defendant, and cannot ascertain it after diligent inquiry, mailing a copy of the order is not required. The moving party is responsible for arranging for the mailing and proof of mailing. Thus if the plaintiff does not know and cannot determine the defendant's address, or has an incorrect address but thinks that it is correct, a service by publication (or even by posting) may be lawful, if the Judge so orders, without the defendant getting an individual copy of the documents by mail. This requires some unlikely events, but is possible.
The GDPR roughly applies in the following scenarios: Art 3(1): you have an establishment in Europe Art 3(2): you do not have an european establishment, but Art 3(2)(a): offer goods or services to persons in Europe Art 3(2)(b): monitor the behaviour of people who are in Europe (where Europe means EU/EEA/UK as appropriate). Art 3(1) does not seem to apply for you. Art 3(2)(a) does not apply, since you're not actively targeting people in Europe. At the point in time where you are offering the app to users, those users are in the US. Art 3(2)(b) could apply if you collect some kind of tracking data, in particular (but not limited to) location data. But if you temporarily shut down collection of new data for personalisation while the user is in Europe, that's probably going to be reasonably safe. It might not be necessary to disable ad personalisation if that personalisation is based on data collected outside of Europe. In practice, unless your app is specifically targeted at travellers, no one will care about what your app does outside of the US. For detailed guidelines on the territorial scope of the GDPR, consider reading EDPB guidelines 3/2018 (PDF). The document contains some relevant examples, but since it's official guidance they won't explicitly say that GDPR won't apply in a scenario like yours. The closest is Example 8: An Australian company offers a mobile news and video content service, based on users’ preferences and interest. Users can receive daily or weekly updates. The service is offered exclusively to users located in Australia, who must provide an Australian phone number when subscribing. An Australian subscriber of the service travels to Germany on holiday and continues using the service. Although the Australian subscriber will be using the service while in the EU, the service is not ‘targeting’ individuals in the Union, but targets only individuals in Australia, and so the processing of personal data by the Australian company does not fall within the scope of the GDPR. Also relevant is Example 10, which says that app downloads in the EU might not be subject to GDPR: A U.S. citizen is travelling through Europe during his holidays. While in Europe, he downloads and uses a news app that is offered by a U.S. company. The app is exclusively directed at the U.S. market, evident by the app terms of use and the indication of US Dollar as the sole currency available for payment. The collection of the U.S. tourist's personal data via the app by the U.S. company is not subject to the GDPR.
I think you vastly exaggerate the difficulty. Basically: when a user registers, ask for their address, including country, as well as a phone number (including country code, which you may validate via SMS for instance). This should give you the 2 pieces of information that help you determine the country In the case of the UK, HMRC says: Support for MOSS registered micro-businesses UK micro-businesses, that are below the current UK VAT registration threshold and are registered for the VAT Mini One Stop Shop (VAT MOSS), may use best judgment and base their ‘customer location’ VAT taxation and accounting decisions on a single piece of information, such as the billing address provided by the customer or information provided to them by their payment service provider. based on the country, use the standard VAT rate for that country. The difficulty here is to track when those rates change, but your accountant should be able to keep up with that. There is very little chance any special reduced rate would apply to such services, and in any case, no tax authority will complain if you apply the standard rate instead of the reduced one! then declare everything online to your local MOSS (you don't need to register with each tax authority! You can, but you don't need to). In the case of a micro-business, this should be more than enough to comply with the rules.