hTTi

Days ago I was venting a bit off with a friend about the fact that due to the new way Solidarity Tax is levied, me and my wife we always find ourselves owing a big amount of this tax in the Steuerklarung. This year for example is almost 1400 eur additional sum to be paid. At the end our steuererklarung ends always in red for us.
This due to the amount of income coming from special payments (13th salary, Urlaub geld, bonuses). It is not considered by our payroll guys when they have to consider how much, monthly, we have to be charged for the solidarity tax.

Now my friend had already the solution : "don't submit the steuerklarung! If you did not change employeer or you did not have additional incomes apart the ones from your employeer, you can omit to submit it !"

Apart the "smartassery" of the solution I believe that a Steuererklarung must always be submitted, especially if there are this speciale cases like the way Solidarity Tax is calculated and levied. Am I right ?

Your friend must have a lot of imagination to believe what they told you: a German state body let you off from painful burocratic torture that results in you owing them money......
If I knew nothing (well, this is more or less the case), I would never believe it.

Well, you are not alone. Last 3 years I have the same issue, HR is calculating less Soli during the year, and at the end I must always make additional payments to the Finanzamt.

As far as I know, if you are employeed and earn more than the general allowance currently is, then you must fill tax income statement.

Frantic wrote: ↑Wed Jul 23, 2025 1:24 pm Now my friend had already the solution : "don't submit the steuerklarung! If you did not change employeer or you did not have additional incomes apart the ones from your employeer, you can omit to submit it !"

Apart the "smartassery" of the solution I believe that a Steuererklarung must always be submitted, especially if there are this speciale cases like the way Solidarity Tax is calculated and levied. Am I right ?

Well, your friend is on the right path.
But there are other reasons why you would have to file a tax return, e.g. if you were in the "tax class combination 3 and 5" or in "tax class combination 4 and 4 with a factor" (which nearly nobody uses).
Or if you had non-German income or had received interest from the Finanzamt because of a tax reimbursement.

The reasons why an employee has to file a tax return are listed in § 46 EStG: https://dejure.org/gesetze/EStG/46.html
You can also read them in this article (scroll down to the list): https://taxfix-de.translate.goog/ratgeb ... _hist=true

But Solidaritätszuschlag is not a reason because of which you would have to file a tax return.
If the only reason you are filing is that your employer's payroll department was incapable and did not retain the right amount of Solidaritätszuschlag on all of your salary components (which they are obliged to!), then you do not have to file a tax return.

But you probably have a another reason to make the tax return mandatory, top reasons are the spouses having tax classes 3 and 5 or non-German capital or rental income.

we are both in class IV.

My concern is also that if, in the future, the missing Solidarity tax amount is discovered, I am anyway the one which should pay it and not my employeer

Frantic wrote: ↑Wed Jul 23, 2025 4:18 pm My concern is also that if, in the future, the missing Solidarity tax amount is discovered, I am anyway the one which should pay it and not my employeer

Yes, that's true.
But maybe they never find out?