When is the deadline for Steuererklärung?

Question

Hello everyone.

I was working part time last year 2016 and earned a good money. I knew a german friend who offered me to help me to do the tax report and i trust him but he always says that I still have till 2018 to do the tax report (steuererklärung) for 2016. I am a bit worried now because when I started to ask I get different views.

My question is: what is the timeframe/deadline (tax calendar year) to submit my tax report?
And in case I am late what will be the worst case. I am very worried.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Hello @nadim

It's nice to hear from you again!

First of all, concerning tax report there are two types of people: 1) those that have to do a tax report and 2) those that can do it if they want to. I'll provide a short overview of what to keep in mind for both groups:

1) As far as I can see the deadline for tax report of 2016 was 27 March 2017. But if you are doing the report with a tax accountant the deadline will be prolonged until 31 December 2017 automatically.

You can apply for extension, but as far as I can see you have to do that before the deadline.

Even though it is mandatory to do a tax report, there are millions of employees that don't hand it in. Be careful with that because not only are you missing out on possible refund, but the tax office might ask for tax reports retroactively.

2) You don't have to do tax report...

- ...if you are single

- ...if you only work for one employer

- ...if you are not working self-employed

- ...if you don't get income from renting (or if this income is lower than 410€ per year)

- ...and if you are not getting benefits (e.g. unemployment benefits, parents' money or sickness benefit) or if those benefits are less than 410€ in total per year.

Yet still it can be a good idea to hand it in since you can get a refund.

If you are not obliged to to a tax report you can take your time: you got 4 years to do the Steuererklärung.

Sources (German language):

https://***.lohnsteuer-kompakt.de/steuerwissen/steuererklaerung-2016-abgabefrist-endet-am-31-mai-2017/

https://***.vlh.de/wissen-service/steuer-abc/wer-muss-eine-steuererklaerung-abgeben.html

I hope this answer was helpful to you. If anything remained unclear: just ask!

Best regards,

Thorgen

Comments

Thank you so much for your response. I think I am in trouble and my German friend was trying to help but don't have the enough experience. I worked for 6 months as a freelancer. The deadline passed. Do you think if I found now a tax adviser and signed with him a contract will be able to submit the report before the deadline meant for tax advisers? I am also finding difficulties to get an early first appointment with any tax advisers and most claiming they are very overloaded. Is there any way I can find a tax adviser near Frankfurt soon?

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Hi, I'm glad to hear that my answer was helpful to you :)

Unfortunately I'm not an expert on tax law. So maybe we wait for Marcel to share his expertise with us to find out if you can commission a tax accountant after the deadline or not. Or maybe someone else in the community knows more about that.

Concerning your search for a tax accountant I'd like to know if you're living in Frankfurt Main or Frankfurt Oder?

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I'm looking forward to @Marcel advice. In the meantime, I will be looking for a Tax adviser/office to help me.

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Hope your problem gets resolved as soon as @nadim

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Just a quick update, I was able to solve this issue. Thank you for your support. I went to a tax adviser and informed me that, since it was my first year of tax declaration, there will be no problem if I wrote an apology letter. So we did the report, sent it with the letter and we are waiting for the response. However, I handed out the report in the Finanzamt and asked again to double check; They said it should be ok.

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Hi @nadim - thanks for the feedback. I'm really glad to hear that everything turned out fine!