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Tax return: five euros per day
Photo: A3528 Armin Weigel / dpa
The taxpayers' association welcomes the idea of relieving home office workers with tax relief.
"Employees who work at home and therefore rely on private resources must receive tax compensation," said President Reiner Holznagel.
Right from the start, they had spoken out in favor of a flat-rate income allowance of 100 euros per month.
"The five euros a day is a correspondingly good approach," said Holznagel in response to a report in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".
The report states that the coalition's financial politicians have agreed on a tax lump sum of five euros per day, but not more than 600 euros per year.
“The home office flat rate is the flexible answer to the encrusted case law on the home office - unbureaucratic and easy to understand,” the newspaper quotes the CSU financial politician Sebastian Brehm.
However, there is still no agreement.
One is within the Union faction and with the coalition partner SPD in the vote.
It is therefore still unclear whether the lump sum should be granted in addition to the so-called employee lump sum of 1000 euros.
When calculating the tax, the amount is deducted from income as a lump sum for expenses that arise in connection with the job, such as travel expenses to work, work clothes or training - so-called advertising expenses.
This reduces the tax burden.
Anyone who has particularly high advertising costs per year so that the lump sum is exceeded, for example due to a long commute, must claim this.
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However, if the home office flat rate is treated like other employee income-related expenses, that would mean that only those who come to more than 1000 euros in income-related expenses benefit.
The Federal Ministry of Finance is in favor of the latter: "If the home office flat rate were granted independently, i.e. in addition to the flat-rate fee for advertising expenses, this would be an excessive (and thus constitutionally dubious) benefit," the FAZ quotes from an updated concept of the ministry.
With the home office flat rate, the coalition takes up an initiative of the states of Hesse and Bavaria: "The Hessian and Bavarian proposal is an unbureaucratic approach to claim the additional costs for the home office," said CDU finance politician Fritz Güntzler of the newspaper.
"The rules for the recognition of a job are currently very restrictive." He had long campaigned for a solution in the interests of employees.
"In the Annual Tax Act 2020 this proposal could now be implemented quickly."
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mik / dpa