Wage tax – Infobrief 02/2018 – Tax consultant – Hagen – Holzwickede – Kamen – Lünen

That’s what this issue is all about.

Client information for wage tax issue February 2018 from your tax consultant Neumann Walczak GmbH in Holzwickede. Here you will find more information about: Conversion of remuneration, social security collective agreement, pension fund, direct insurance, inheritance tax, marginal employment, maintenance obligation, capital assets, extension of the permanent deadline and e-bikes.

Information Letter – No.02/2018

Content

– New subsidies for company pension plans from 2018: deferred compensation – income tax – social insurance

– Deadline for annual social security declarations: February 15

– Inheritance tax allowance for care of relatives

– Default on a private loan receivable as a loss from capital assets

– Permanent extension for advance payments of VAT in 2018

– E-bikes: Provision by the employer or provision of electricity for the employee’s e-bike

– Income tax certificates 2017

– Destruction of accounting records

New subsidies for company pension plans from 2018: deferred compensation – income tax – social insurance

The Company Pension Strengthening Act will improve the framework conditions for company pensions for employees from 2018. In the future, employers may be required by collective bargaining agreement to pay contributions to finance the employee’s company pension benefits to a pension fund, a Pensionskasse or a direct insurance policy in the form of a pure defined contribution plan.

In the future, a collective agreement may provide for automatic deferred compensation for contributions to the company pension plan (previously, there was only an entitlement to deferred compensation for direct insurance policies); however, the employee may object to deferred compensation.
In the case of deferred compensation, from 2019 the employer is obliged to pass on an additional 15% of the converted salary as a subsidy to the relevant pension institutions, insofar as it saves social security contributions as a result of the deferred compensation.

The savings in social security contributions thus benefit the employee. Accompanying these measures, tax incentives will be improved as of January 1, 2018:

The maximum amounts for tax-exempt contributions to company pension plans pursuant to Section 3 No. 63 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG) will be increased from the previous 4% to 8% of the contribution assessment ceiling in the statutory pension insurance scheme (West).
For 2018, this results in a maximum wage tax-free amount of 6,240 euros. However, if current contributions are already taxed at a flat rate under the previous law in accordance with Section 40b of the German Income Tax Act (EStG) (especially for “old” direct insurance policies), these will be offset against the maximum amount…