Taxes & Co, everything about taxes

How to get the year tax statement?

Doing your Tax Return

The German tax and financial system requires you to do your own tax return every year (or have someone do it for you). Not everyone has to file a tax return in Germany. However, if you have opted for the CHANCEN financing, you are obliged to send us your annual tax assessment at the latest from the year of repayment. You will receive the tax statement after you have submitted your tax return. So everything starts with you doing your tax return. We will go into more detail below on how to do this.

Submission to the Tax Office (Finanzamt)

Once you have completed your tax return, you transmit the data electronically to the tax office.

Verification and calculation of your data by the Tax Office

Once your data has reached the tax office, the work begins. Your data will be checked and it will be determined whether you are entitled to a tax refund.

Receipt of tax assessment/statement

It usually takes 2-6 weeks for the tax office to send you your tax assessment by post or, nowadays, digitally. Are you already in repayment? Then you should submit the tax assessment immediately via the CHANCEN portal.
We will compare the assessment with the data from the previous year and inform you whether a possible additional payment would be due, whether a credit has arisen or whether everything has been balanced.
The next year, the process starts all over again. You file your tax return -> receive the assessment -> send it to us.
Until you have completed the repayment, we need your tax assessment every year.

The best tools to do your tax return

Here we present the most common tools to do your tax return

The easiest way to file your tax return is directly electronically. In theory, private individuals are still allowed to submit their tax return in paper form, but this usually takes more time.

We present the most popular programmes here:

Elster – Free programme of the German tax authorities (Finanzamt). It might take a while to find your way around the tool, but once you’ve used it a few times, it gets easier. If you need a guide on how to use it, you can also take a look at this Elster Tutorial Video on Youtube.

Smartsteuer – 34,99 EUR per tax return. Let us know if you would like to use this tool, through a cooperation we can provide you with a discount code.

TaxFix – 39,99 EUR per tax return. Another tool with which you can do your tax return relatively easily.

WISO – between 29,95 and 39,95 EUR. This provider also offers the possibility to do your tax return and guide you step by step through the different tax points.

Klartax – appr. 19,99 EUR, DATEV (an IT service provider with a focus on the tax advisor market) has developed an offer for private individuals that can be used online or via app.

Which provider you choose is entirely up to you. For us, the only thing that counts in the end is the result, namely the tax assessment/statement. You will receive this from the tax office a few weeks after you have submitted your tax return.

Taxes & CHANCEN Repayment

How can you claim the repayment for tax purposes? We explain it to you here.

First Degree Studies

A first degree course is considered as such if no other training was completed before the start of the course and the course is not completed as part of an employment relationship. Tuition fees for a first degree course can be claimed as special expenses up to an amount of EUR 6,000 per year.
The funding from CHANCEN eG can only claimed as earnings-related, downstream tuition fees after you have completed your studies, i.e. when you pay back. As a student, you should be able to claim the tuition fee payments to CHANCEN eG as special expenses (up to EUR 6,000 possible) per year. By shifting the tuition fees to the time of your professional activity, you should be able to achieve a positive tax effect, especially since you will then generate correspondingly high income from which the tuition fees can be deducted as special expenses.
If you pay your tuition fees directly (so not via a CHANCEN financing) to the university, they can only be claimed against tax in the calendar year in which they were paid. However, students’ income is often so low that they usually do not benefit from tax deductibility. As special expenses, tuition fees cannot be carried over to later years.

Second Degree Studies

A second degree programme is one in which you have successfully completed professional training or another degree programme prior to commencing your studies. Whether a course of study is a second course of study should be checked in each individual case before taking up the course. Tuition fees for a second degree course can be claimed as income-related expenses. Tuition fees for a second degree programme are also tax deductible in the year of payment. However, tuition fees can be claimed here as income-related expenses without limitation and, unlike special expenses, are not limited to EUR 6,000. Due to the higher income after completion of studies and the payment of tuition fees spread over several years, this can result in greater tax relief.
If the income-related expenses exceed the taxable income, you incur a loss that you can carry forward to future years. However, these losses carried forward are often already fully offset against income in the first year of employment. The tax relief then depends on the graduate’s individual tax rate.

Income Related Expenses

What else you can deduct from your taxes

You should know:

Income-related expenses reduce your tax burden when you earn income as an employee.
Income-related expenses include all costs that you incur through your work.
A lump sum of 1.000 EUR (1.200 EUR from 2022 on) is taken into account for employees when you file your tax return (‘Arbeitnehmerpauschbetrag’).
If you have spent more than 1.000 euros a year on income-related expenses, you can only reclaim any overpaid taxes by providing detailed information in Annex N of your tax return. This could include, for example, the annual repayment of the CHANCEN financing if it was a second degree that was financed (see also section ‘Taxes & CHANCEN repayment’ explained above).

This video from Smartsteuer explains more about this:

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Special Expenses

What else you can deduct from taxes

Special expenses are usually private expenses that can be deducted from your income in the course of your tax return in order to save tax.

The most significant expenses are pension contributions, i.e. contributions for retirement provisions, social insurance (health and long-term care insurance) and other insurances. Other special expenses can be payments into a Riester contract, alimony payments to an ex-partner and church tax.
In addition, you can deduct the costs for the care of your children, for the first professional training as well as school fees and donations.
When you file your tax return, the tax office takes into account the special expenses allowance: 36 euros for singles, 72 euros for married couples. Most of us, however, have higher expenses that the tax office allows for as special expenses.
You must enter church tax and donations in the special expenses annex. Your social security contributions and other contributions for retirement provision are entered in the annex “Vorsorgeaufwand”. Riester savers fill out the annex AV. Childcare costs and school fees belong in the Child annex.

Start early

The annual deadline for filing income tax returns ends every year on 31 July of the following year. Every year, however, this deadline is extended by the tax offices. It is best to find out about this beforehand or to start filing your tax return early in the following year.

An extension of the official deadline is possible in exceptional cases if you submit an application to the tax office and give reasons for your wish.

Please note, however, that the deadline for submitting the tax assessment to us is always 31 December of the following year.

Choose the right tool

Whether directly via Elster or another tool. There are various ways to file your tax return.

We have presented several above, each of which has its advantages. See what suits you best and start your declaration. It often takes less time than we think.

Send us your tax assessment

Once you have made the declaration and received the tax assessment, all that remains is for you to send it to us:

To do so, log in to the CHANCEN portal
Go the tab for ‘repayment and request’
Send a new case with the heading ‘Income tax assessment’.
Enter all necessary data in the case and upload your tax assessment/statement
After we have got your case, you will receive the Annual Statement from us for the corresponding year. If you have paid too much, you will have a credit balance. If you have paid too little, you will have to make an additional payment, which can be paid in socially acceptable instalments.

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