Wait, we have longer to file our tax returns?
Yes, that's right. Due to the Covid pandemic, the German government has extended the deadline for submitting the 2021 tax return.
Those who have a tax advisor help them with their tax return now do not have to submit the return for 2021 until the end of August 2023, while those who do the tax return themselves will be given until the end of October.
In ordinary times, people with a tax consultant are given until the end of the next year to file their return, while people who file it themselves are given until July 31st the following year.
However, people have been given extra leeway to file their tax returns since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
The law was voted through on Thursday with a large majority of MPs from the traffic coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) and also had the support of the opposition CDU/CSU.
The far-left Die Linke and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) parties both abstained.
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What else is new?
On Thursday, the Bundestag also voted through a number of tax relief measures, which are intended to support households and businesses who were hit hard by the Covid crisis in 2021.
They include a €5 per day allowance for those who had to work from home and new ways for companies to write off profits from 2021 against losses they suffered the year before.
Health and care workers are also set to benefit from the tax relief measures. Any bonuses received for working through the pandemic will be tax-free up to €4,500.
READ ALSO: German government to extend ‘working from home’ allowance
This is the second round of tax relief measures that the government has pushed through in as many weeks.
On May 12th, parliamentarians voted to retrospectively raise the tax-free allowance for 2022 to €10,347 per year - an increase of €363 compared to the previous year's tax-free amount of €9,984.
They also voted to increase the amount of expenses automatically written off by the Finanzamt in 2022. This has gone up by €200 to €1,200.
Meanwhile, people who commute long distances to work will now be able to write off an extra three cents per kilometre in their tax return. Under the revised commuter allowance, people who travel more than 21km to work can write off 38 cents for every kilometre over this distance.
The government expects tax losses of €235 million this year as a result of the latest tax relief measures alone - and it estimates that, by 2026, the treasury will be down more than €11 billion.
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