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Do paperwork: You can apply for a wage tax reduction at any time
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Cavan Images/Getty Images
Many citizens are concerned that they will not be able to pay their energy bills in the near future.
They scrape together their savings – and yet it may not be enough.
However, most employees have another ace up their sleeve that is worth pulling: the application for a wage tax reduction.
If you work and earn halfway, you pay income tax month after month.
At the end of the year, you will have paid approximately the appropriate income tax for the year.
However, this system overlooks the fact that many of them have considerable costs to deduct and thus reduce the tax.
However, these are only taken into account after the tax return has been submitted in the following year.
88 percent of taxpayers who submit a tax return subsequently get money back from the state.
On average, that's more than 1000 euros.
You would not be able to get this tax money back for 2022 with your tax return until early summer 2023 at the earliest.
But many need the money now.
Then get this money right away!
The trick: If you apply for a wage tax reduction, take part of the tax assessment with the tax return forward to the monthly paycheck.
You can make all the arguments that will lead to a reduction in your income tax when you file your tax return in 2023.
The tax office then enters a corresponding allowance on your electronic tax card (Elstam).
And your employer deducts less tax from your gross salary every month.
This is regulated by law in Section 39a of the Income Tax Act.
You can make such an application at any time.
You can get the official form for this from any tax office, but also online as a form from »Mein Elster« or in the form management system of the federal tax authorities.
On the main form - as it is called in tax office German - you can then enter the costs that are incurred regularly or reliably in this year and lead to a reduction in your tax burden over the course of the year.
You should be able to claim at least 600 euros in costs for the application so that the tax office accepts the application at all.
Because you, as an employee, have an employee allowance of 1,200 euros on your tax card anyway, the chargeable income-related expenses must be at least 1,800 euros.
However, you can state tradesman costs and costs for household-related services from just the first euro.
There are a few exceptions.
Details can be found in the financial tip guide.
Classic costs that you can state for wage tax reduction are
Expenses related to your job, such as
the cost of commuting
(distance allowance),
running two households
, professional
training
or
work equipment
like a computer.
Costs for a study, specialist literature and work clothes also count.
An example: After two years of working from home, you now have to drive 60 kilometers to your place of work again, 200 working days a year.
That’s 12,000 kilometers – only the distance counts for the calculation here, not the outward and return journey.
For 4000 kilometers (the first 20 kilometers each) you can have 30 cents per kilometer offset as costs (distance flat rate), for the remaining 8000 kilometers even 38 cents.
That makes a total of 1200 + 3040 euros, i.e. 4240 euros, which you can deduct from your taxable annual income under the new tax rules, minus the flat rate of 1200 euros.
Special expenses
such as maintenance payments to the spouse who has just divorced or separated, childcare costs, donations or church tax.
If, for example, you had a major dental operation at the beginning of the year and an implant had to be inserted, resulting in costs of 5000 euros, you can also deduct these costs if they are reasonable.
Exceptional burdens
that is called in official German.
This is also where you would enter the cost of storms and floods if you are affected by such inconveniences.
High craftsman costs
, which you have already paid in your household in 2022,
are also a safe bet for arguments with the tax office .
For example, if you remodeled the bathroom for 10,000 euros and incurred 6000 euros in wages and travel expenses, you can claim these 6000 euros and get 1200 euros back from the tax office.
6000 euros, that is also the maximum amount that you can declare to the tax office as tradesman costs in one year.
Something is also possible with the costs for
household-related services
, a total of 2040 euros.
So if you employ a cleaning company throughout the year that gets 200 euros from you every month, you can claim 2040 euros of that, and you would get 510 euros back.
Even single parents can get a decent boost to their net income by applying for a wage tax reduction.
You have a
relief
contribution of 4008 euros, which is automatically taken into account in tax class 2.
If you are quite sure that you will also have similar costs to deduct in 2023, you can check the box “Two-year validity of the allowance” in the form.
However, if there are likely to be significantly fewer costs for disposal in 2023, it is better to leave it alone.
Because you are obliged to notify the tax office of changes - and the nice savings in bureaucracy would be gone.
Get started right away and maybe benefit as early as September!
If you start right now, you can finish it in the last days of August.
Maybe you're in the process of filing your tax return for the previous year anyway, so you're in the flow right now.
So either send the form for the income tax reduction electronically to the tax authorities via “Mein Elster” or hand in the signed form to the tax office.
You can download the form online, but you still have to send it in in the traditional way outside of Elster.
If you are quick, you have a good chance of getting more net pay with your September salary.
The calculated exempt amount is spread over the remaining months of the year, if you come up with an exempt amount of 4000 euros, you have a thousand more for each of the four months until the end of the year, which you can claim for tax purposes.
Depending on your income, this can easily add up to a third of your salary.
An example: Anyone who earns an average of around 3,500 euros gross per month as a single person without children has around 300 euros more net in their pocket with this additional allowance – in each of the four months up to the turn of the year.
That's particularly charming this September, because you already earn 300 euros more gross because of the energy money, but you also have to pay taxes on it.
With energy money and less income tax on your paycheck, your September 2022 net income may actually be significantly higher, and you have the first installment of your ironclad to set aside for energy bills in the coming months.
If you earn more, the tax benefit is even greater; if you earn less, the tax benefit is correspondingly smaller.
Is there another downside?
Not really.
The main advantage is that you get the tax refund back now and don't have to wait for the coming spring.
This advantage is particularly significant in times of high energy prices and thus high inflation.
However, you still have to submit your tax return by October 2nd next year.
All of this is recalculated by the tax office down to the smallest detail.
It is very likely that you will not get much back, but a small additional charge of, for example, 30 or 40 euros should be possible.