1 Saving taxes as a tenant
How is that supposed to work, you might ask now. Of course, you can not deduct the rent itself. (Unless you have a proper study or a small second home at your place of work.) However, everyone can deduct parts of the operating costs! Every year you receive the operating costs statement from your landlord. And everything that belongs to the household services or craftsman services, you can deduct 20%.
This includes, among other things, the costs for the caretaker, the building cleaning, the winter service, the garden maintenance, the chimney sweep or the maintenance of the elevator and the house spa. There quickly come together a few 100 euros. We have described this in detail in this blog article. If you live in your own home instead, you can also deduct the listed costs. Read more here.
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2 Distance flat rate – no matter how you get to work
Most have probably heard of this value, also called mileage flat rate. There are 30 cents per kilometer for the easy route to work – every working day. From the 21st kilometer it is even 35 cents since this year. It doesn’t matter how you get to work. Car, bike, bus & amp; train, walking. No matter! It can also deduct the full 30 cents each and everyone in a carpool.
Important: The shortest road connection counts. Unless you can prove that you regularly use a faster route (such as the highway). Then this travel distance is set. If your annual ticket for public transport costs more than the sum of the kilometers driven times the 30 cents, you can count these as expenses. Example: You have a commute of 10 kilometers. That would be 690 € per year as a lump sum for 230 working days. But your ticket costs 800 € per year. Then you can deduct this 800€.
3 Using the home office flat rate correctly
Brand new in the corona pandemic: The home office flat rate. For every day you work at home, there is 5 €, maximum 600 € a year. Of course, it’s even better if you have a real (tax-deductible) study. This must be, roughly speaking, a locked room that you use almost exclusively for work. Then you can (as mentioned briefly in the first tip), among other things, the pro rata rent.
You can find this in detail here in this blog post. Attention: If you claim 100 days in the home office, for example, in the tax return, you may not use these 100 days for the removal fee. So if you have a commute of 17 kilometers and more, you are tax-lousy. But the car is used less and it does not have to be refueled.
4 More reimbursement through work equipment
Work equipment ranges from typical work clothes including cleaning costs to a briefcase to professionally used smartphones and laptops. You can also deduct these costs from the tax. Since 2021, even the complete purchase price of a professionally used computer can be deducted in one fell swoop. This has been different so far. From a certain limit, the computer could only be written off for several years. Which is not so good fiscally. You can read more about this in this article.
5 Correct view – even with sunglasses and laser
You may already know that a “normal” glasses can be deducted from the tax. As a so-called extraordinary load. But there is much more.
– Sunglasses: However, these must be in your eyesight and have been prescribed by a doctor.
– Contact lenses: Here, too, you should have a prescription.
– Eye laser surgery: Until 2006 you still needed a medical certificate. Now a doctor’s prescription is enough.
And not to forget: The travel costs for the respective treatment or purchase.
With extraordinary loads, you can unfortunately not settle everything, but only from the value of the reasonable load. What this is and how to get the most out of it, you read in the last tip.
6 Pack everything with health in a year
In the previous tip, it was already about the extraordinary loads. But what exactly is that? This includes everything you have to pay for your health yourself. Co-payments on medicines, but also hearing aids and much more.Unfortunately, it is not possible to deduct the entire sum of the self – paid costs from the tax, but – as mentioned above-only from the reasonable charge.
Their amount is between 1 and 7% of the taxable income, depending on the marital status, the number of children and how much you earn. Our online calculator for extraordinary loads offers a first orientation. You get the most money out if you try to put all (larger) expenses in one calendar year. Why?
A simple example: Imagine that your reasonable charge is €1,200. For example, if you pay € 1,000 for dentures in November and another € 1,000 in February, you will be left empty-handed in both years. (If you don’t have any other extraordinary stresses.) If you put both treatments in one calendar year, it is 2.000€, so you get over the 1.200 € and can at least 800 € deduct .
What does this mean for me?
It is always worthwhile to look closely at the expenses. A lot can be settled. Just look at the page Kann-man-das-absetzen.de, there you will get even more suggestions. And quite clearly: If you want to sell something, you have to make a tax return. By the way, with the online solution smartsteuer you get to your destination particularly quickly. You will not miss any savings opportunities, because everything is queried step by step in the form of an interview.
Zaster readers receive with the coupon code “ZASTER” incidentally until August 31 5 Euro discount on their first tax return with smart tax. Get your overpaid taxes back now-on www.smartsteuer.de!
This article was written by Stefan Heine
*The article “These 6 things, you can easily settle with the tax return” is published by ZASTER. Contact the person responsible here.
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