The employee tax assessment for 2018 can already be submitted to the tax office (preferably via FinanzOnline). If you do not file a 2018 assessment and still qualify for a tax credit, the Internal Revenue Service will perform an automatic (no application required) employee assessment under certain circumstances. This article is intended to give you some tips on how you as an employee can get money back from the tax office.
Deductions
Deductions reduce the tax to be paid. Examples of deductions that are generally already taken into account in the monthly statement are the transportation deduction for employees or the pensioner deduction for retirees.
Single earners/single parents can claim a deduction of € 494.00 per year for one child (€ 669.00 for two children, € 889.00 for three children and € 220.00 for each additional child) in the employee tax assessment under certain conditions. Child support may be entitled to a child support deduction. The Family Bonus Plus is not available until 2019.
Negative tax
It may also make sense for employees who do not pay payroll taxes, but only Social Security taxes, to use an assessment technique. Employees can be reimbursed a maximum of € 400.00, commuters even a maximum of € 500.00 and pensioners a maximum of € 110.00 of the SV contributions for 2018. The sole-earner deduction is also eligible for negative taxation.
Special expenses/advertising costs/extraordinary burdens
Check your bills from 2018 (the date of payment is important), whether the expenses can be deducted as income-related expenses, special expenses or extraordinary expenses.
Business expenses include z. B. Education and training costs, as well as retraining measures, travel and travel expenses. To be able to achieve a tax advantage here, the income-related expenses should exceed € 132.00, because a flat-rate income-related expense allowance in this amount is already taken into account in the current payroll calculation. Certain occupational groups, such as z. B. Stage employees, politicians, journalists, representatives, expatriates, can claim a much higher standard deduction for business expenses. For commuters, the commuter allowance is deductible under certain conditions.
For example, certain donations (up to a maximum of 10% of the total amount of income for the 2018 calendar year), tax consultancy costs, church contributions (up to € 400.00 per year) and additional purchases of pension insurance months are deductible as special expenses. Certain special expenses (z. B. Donations and church contributions) are already transferred directly to the tax authorities by the receiving organizations. So-called "pot special expenses" (z. B. Insurance premiums, expenses related to home renovations) can generally only be deducted for 2018 assessments for old contracts (entered into before 2016).
Extraordinary expenses are non-ordinary expenses that inevitably arise. Here is also often an income-dependent deductible to be considered. So u. a. Certain childcare expenses up to a maximum of € 2.300 per child for 2018 for the last time also still without deductible to be deducted. But disaster damage, medical expenses and care costs, for example, can also be extraordinary burdens. If you have a disability, u can. a. lump-sum allowances can be claimed.
Child allowance
The child allowance for 2018 is €440.00 per year per child under certain conditions if claimed by a single taxpayer for one child, or €300.00 per year per child if claimed by two taxpayers for the same child.