“Regularly recurring year-end expenses.”

In the case of non-accounting taxpayers with profit determination by means of the income statement (Section 4 (3) EStG) or in the case of rental and capital income, income and expenses are generally taken into account for tax purposes in the calendar year in which they are received or paid (cf. Section 11 EStG).

In the case of an inflow of income, for example, the time of receipt of cash, a check or the crediting of the bank account is decisive.

The same applies to expenses: In the case of bank transfers, the outflow is usually effected as soon as the transfer order has been transmitted to the bank; in the case of payments by girocard or credit card, the entry of the PIN number is regularly decisive for the outflow. Payments by direct debit shall be deemed to have been made on the due date when the direct debit authorization is issued, irrespective of the posting date.

A special rule applies if regularly recurring expenses (e.g. interest on loans, rent or insurance premiums) are paid “for a short time” before or after the end of a calendar year; a period of 10 days, i.e. the period around the turn of the year from 22 December to 10 January, is considered a short time.

Recurring expenses made during this period shall be attributed to the calendar year to which they economically belong if the payments also became due within this period.

In the case of non-accounting entrepreneurs, advance sales tax payments are generally also part of the regularly recurring expenses. It should be noted here that the determination of the due date is based solely on the statutory deadline, not on a possible extension of the deadline due to the weekend regulation.

The extension of the payment deadline is in connection with the “discharge fiction” in § 11 para. 2 EStG is not applicable, however; the decisive factor here is that the payment was made by January 10.

In the example case, the advance sales tax payment could therefore be taken into account as an expense in accordance with the economic affiliation in calendar year 01.