Corona bonus: Under this condition, the special payment remains tax-free
Created: 01/17/2022 07:59
By: Anne Hund
The Corona bonus is tax-free up to a maximum of 1,500 euros.
© Daniel Karmann/dpa
Some employees receive a bonus payment from their employer as a result of the corona pandemic.
Do they have to give up some of that?
More than one million employees in the
public sector in the federal states will receive a
tax and duty-free Corona special payment of 1,300 euros
by March at the latest
.
Unions and representatives of the federal states had agreed on this, among other things, as the German Press Agency (dpa) reported on Monday (November 29).
According to the agreement, trainees, interns and student employees get half of this, according to dpa, i.e. a
corona bonus
of 650 euros.
Corona bonus: Tax-free 1,500 euros in addition to wages possible
This is just an example.
Some employers also voluntarily pay their employees a so-called
Corona*
premium
,
or also called
Corona bonus
.
Is the bonus payment tax-free or do employees have to cede some of it?
There is a limit: the premium is tax-free up to a maximum of 1,500 euros.
It doesn't matter whether the
payment
is made monthly or as a one-off payment, as the
Stuttgarter Nachrichten
describes in its online edition.
The employer can also split the tax-free bonus - the main thing in any case is that the total of 1,500 euros is not exceeded.
"If the employer wants to pay a higher amount, employees have to pay tax on the difference," as the portal
stuttgarter-nachrichten.de
reports.
Another prerequisite for the
tax-free Corona bonus of up to 1,500 euros
is that it is “granted in addition to the wages that are already owed”.
In other words: the paid premium must not replace wages.
Also read
: Important for taxpayers: How to save a lot of money at the turn of the year 2021/2022
Video: That will change in 2022 when it comes to money
Corona bonus tax-free until the end of March 2022
Since March 2020, employers have been able to pay their employees such a
tax-free corona bonus of up to 1,500 euros
- the regulation has since been extended to March 2022. For example, if a company paid its employees a corona bonus of 1,000 euros in 2020 ,
a bonus of 500 euros can now be granted
until March 31, 2022
, as the German Press Agency (dpa) clearly shows with an example made. However, anyone who has already received 1,500 euros as a corona bonus from their employer in 2020, for example, cannot receive a tax-free payment again this year or next. Good to know: Anyone who
has two or more employment relationships
with a
different employer
may receive the bonus of up to 1,500 euros for each employment relationship - even within a calendar year.
The money can be paid out to full or part-time employees, as the online edition of the
Stuttgarter Nachrichten
also described, as well as to mini-jobbers.
"The employment remains a 450-euro mini-job, since the special payment is a tax-free and social security-free benefit," as the mini-job center informed in its blog (as of June 10, 2021), among other things.
Also interesting:
Employees can count on this much Christmas bonus in 2021
When are taxes due for the Corona bonus?
What applies to employees if the regulation expires at the end of March 2022?
Even after that, employers should still be able to pay out bonuses, according to the report on
stuttgarter-nachrichten.de
(as of October 19);
“However, these must then be taxed if the deadline is not extended again”.
(ahu) *Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
