Frequently Asked Questions
Refund Eligibility
There are multiple clauses, which make you eligible for tax refund, namely:
1. Business expenses(Werbungskosten): If your business expenses are more than EUR 1000.
2. Extraordinary expenses(Außergewöhnliche Belastungen): In case there are any extraordinary expenses like hospitalization costs or funeral costs, claims can be made under this clause.However, this only leads to a reduction in the tax if expenses exceed a certain portion of your income.
3. Maintenance support: If you have provided financial support to your dependents(above 65 years) and these expenses are eligible for deduction.
4. Tax class change: If your tax class changes in a Financial year due to a life event (marriage/birth of a child).
5. Double Household: If you pay rent in Germany, and India/other country. Also, you have traveled to meet your family, paid bus/train/flight tickets and had phone expenses.
6. Kinderfreibetrag: If tax benefits with Kinderfreibetrag is more than child allowances received in Kindergeld.
7. Expenses done on child care, education etc.
General Questions
Filing tax return
Tax return can be filed after you receive Lohnsteuerbescheinigung from your employer for last financial year. For example, Lohnsteuerbescheinigung for Financial year 2015 is issued by employers to employees in month of January, 2016. Thus, tax return for FY 2015 can be filed after January, 2016.
Time taken for refund
After filing tax return with Finanzamt, it usually takes 3-4 months to get refund money in your bank account.
Deadlines for filing the tax return
In order to get a German tax refund, a tax return needs to be submitted to the finance office (“Finanzamt”). How much time do you have to do this? There are two cases to be considered:
Case 1: You are not legally obligated to file a tax return. In other words: the finance office believes that you paid enough or more in income tax already. If you want to apply for a tax refund for the year 2015, you have time up to the end of 2019.
Case 2: You are legally obligated to file a tax return. That means that the finance office believes that you need to pay more in income taxes than you already did. This might be for example the case when you got salary from more than one employer at the same time. The deadline for filing the tax return in Germany in this case for the year 2015 is the 31.05.2016.
German Wage Tax Calculator
UrTaxLounge provides free tax refund estimate to all it’s clients based upon it’s German Wage Tax Calculator services. We work closely with our clients and focus on each and every minute detail in order to get maximum tax refund, which you can get from Finanzamt. German Tax Calculator