Tax declaration in Germany

by Ivana Kraiselburd
1 min read Mar 28, 2017
Hello! I have a question regarding tax declaration. I work in Germany, and I would like to do the annual tax declaration to be able to get some money back. Even thouhg I´m living here I have a house in my homecountry, which of course I have to still support nad represents expenses. Does anybody knows how I should declare this? I´m using a program for the tax declaration, and I do not fond that option, but I was told that I could claim that type of expese. I would very much appreciate your help.... Regards! Ivana

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Brian Cahill
Apr 04, 2017

Dear Ivana,
Two years ago we asked a tax advisor to speak to our German Chapter. She was very good.

As we spoke about this in Salamanca, I know that you maintain a home in Argentina. I did the tax declarations for some of my colleagues in the same situation about 7 or 8 years ago. The clause of German tax law is called Double Household - Doppelte Haushaltsführung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelte_Haushaltsf%C3%BChrung_(Deutschland) This allows deduction of eligible expenses for a second residence necessary for doing your job from your taxable imcome. This probably applies to you but does not apply to all of our members.

The tax program should include this is under "Werbungskosten" - tax deductable expenses.

At the beginning of the tax declaration, I put the description of both colleagues as "Gastwissenschaftler" - Guest scientist. This made it clear they weren't going to stay in Germany forever, that they would return home and that they were guests in Germany.

They got the following reductions:

  1. Umzugskosten - Moving costs - also available without double household.
  2. Fahrtkosten/Familienheimfahrten - Travel costs to visit first home.
  3. Unterkunftskosten - Cost of renting second home.
  4. Verpflegungsmehraufwendungen - Flat-rate living expenses during first three months. 

You will also have to declare how much you earned in the part of the first year you weren't in Germany. Your global income for the year decides the tax rate but only the German income is taxed.

There is some scope for tax reductions using double taxation agreements but I have no personal experience of that and there are too many double taxation agreements with small changes between them for me to offer any sort of reliable advice.

Warm regards,

Brian