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How Germany's Finance Minister wants to provide Covid tax relief

The Local Germany
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How Germany's Finance Minister wants to provide Covid tax relief
A woman fills out her tax declaration on ELSTER. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Marijan Murat

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) plans to offer numerous tax breaks this year to offset the economic difficulties caused by the Covid crisis.

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In a draft bill obtained by DPA, Lindner set out a number of key tax relief plans for the next calendar year.

The plan provides for the extension of the home office allowance for employees and extended options for companies to offset their profits. 

Introduced during the early phases of the pandemic, the home office allowance allows workers to deduct €5 in expenses for every day spent working from home, up to a maximum of €600 or 120 days.

This is intended to compensate for the additional costs of electricity, water and gas that home office workers may face. 

If the bill passes, small to medium-sized businesses will also be able to offset profit in 2021 against losses the previous year in order to balance out their taxes. 

READ ALSO: How much does working from home in Germany hike up your electricity bill?

In addition, the deadline for submitting the tax return for 2020 is to be extended again, having initially been postponed by three months to October 31st 2021. For people who use a tax advisor, the extended deadline was May 31st 2022. 

So far, the Finance Ministry has not detailed how long the latest extension will be. 

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According to DPA, Lindner is also keen for Covid bonuses to be tax exempt up to a value of €3,000. 

The majority of the measures are part of the coalition agreement revealed by the traffic light coalition of the FDP, SDP and Greens in November. 

The approval of the cabinet, Bundestag and Bundesrat is still pending. 

 

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Anonymous 2022/02/03 17:28
And the self-employed?....
  • Anonymous 2022/02/03 17:52
    Hi Richard, we'll try and find some more details on that.

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