wundertax: an Easy English Tax Tool for Expats in Germany
By BERLIN LOVES YOU . March 25, 2019
Now you can do your German tax declaration online and in English. And it couldn’t be simpler.
wundertax is an ex-pat tax tool that’s 100% in English. It’s a super-simple service that allows you to submit your German tax declaration online in just 15 minutes.
With wundertax, ex-pat clients receive an average rebate of around €1110 (national average: €974). Think of all the vegan Thai food you could buy with that! And you don’t even have to mess around with Elster, the online German tax tool.
Watch their video tutorial or follow the instructions below to find out how you can quickly file your tax returns in Germany and hopefully get some of that hard-grafted cash back.
Get started with wundertax now.
How wundertax works
After you access wundertax, this guide below will tell you everything you’ll need to quickly file your German tax return in English:
Personal data
You can start filing your taxes after you’ve created an account with an email and password. In the first step of the tool, you will be asked to provide the following data: the tax year you want to file for, your date of birth, address, religion and family status.
If you’re married, you can file a joint tax declaration together with your partner.
Income
The second step is the most important step in the whole tool. This is where you provide your income information, both as an employee or as someone who is self-employed. If employed, you will need your Lohnsteuerbescheinigung (the income tax certificate provided by your employer) for this.
Now, the fun part. The tool will start calculating if you’re owed anything back. This is where you can start deducting costs and providing data in the following sections which might reduce your tax contributions. If you’re a freelancer in Berlin, it really pays to find out the what/where/why and hows of expenses and begin collecting all appropriate receipts.
Expenses as employee
In the third step of the tool, you can insert expenses like “Job search and training expenses”, “Professional association fees and tax consultancy” and “Telecommunication costs”.
Remember that you can also deduct the cost of using the wundertax tool.
Work/Study expenses
In the fourth step, you can deduct costs related to work and study items, such as computers, software, books and so on. If you spent less than €110, you don’t need to specify the type of product you bought, the total cost and or the date of purchase. If you spent more than €110 per year, remember to keep your receipts/invoices in case the tax office requests them.
Transportation to and from work
In the fifth step of the tool, you can deduct the commuting costs you built up by travelling to the office every day by providing your home address and your office address. The tax office takes € 0.30/km into account as deductible costs. If you paid for public transportation, you can deduct these costs as well.
No panic if you lived or worked in two different places in a given year, you can make another entry with the respective addresses.
Additional costs
In the sixth step of the tool, you can insert other, additional expenses you accumulated in a given year, like childcare costs, household services, healthcare costs, and many others.
In this step, you can also deduct the costs of any job-related relocation: perfect if you moved to Germany for a new job!
Data for the tax office
In the seventh and last step of the tool, you need to provide the tax office with some important information in order to receive your tax return: your bank account details, your tax ID (Steuer-ID) or tax number (Steuernummer).
Once you have provided this data, you can proceed with the service fee payment. You can, of course, halt the process at any time without incurring any costs.
Submit your tax declaration
Your tax declaration is done! Now you have to submit it to the tax office: you can do it online, by scanning your ID/passport and Anmeldung, or via post, by printing, signing and sending your tax declaration to the tax office.
Soon after, you’ll receive a confirmation that your tax return has been filed, and it can take up to 10 weeks to receive any refunds they might owe you.
Get tax returnin’. Start your tax declaration with wundertax now.
Article sponsored by wundertax.