"Always learn from the best" is our motto and that's why we've enlisted the help of a real expert in tax matters to help you with your tax return. Whether you do your tax return at home on paper, with an online tax tool or with a tax advisor, tax advisor Dieter Albrecht has a good tip for everyone.
Diplom-Kaufmann Dieter Albrecht has been working as a tax consultant and auditor in his own office since 1991. Currently, 16 employees work in his office in Damme, in Lower Saxony.
The first thing I wanted to know from Mr Albrecht was where I could save the most tax as an employee.
"These are firstly the income-related expenses from non-self-employed work and then also the household-related services."
Mr Albrecht explained to me. "This includes craftsmen's services and services on one's own house or flat".
Unfortunately, important documents are often missing from the tax return, so that the tax advisor can only guess that more costs have probably been incurred. For example, as an operator of a photovoltaic system, you can also deduct other operating expenses.
It is very important that the labour costs are shown separately on the tradesman's invoice. " It often happens that an invoice states 'We carried out gardening work on your house' and then there is only a lump sum, but no wage costs are shown," Mr Albrecht recounts from his everyday life. In this case, the invoice cannot be taken into account as a household service for the tax return.
What takes up a lot of time for tax advisors is sorting through their clients' documents.
"Often I get the classic shoebox where everything is just thrown in and where nothing is sorted or - I've actually experienced this too - where there were letters inside that hadn't been opened yet."
That costs a lot of time and therefore money. Does this sound familiar? Then why not try our fileeeBox? If you scan and store your documents with the box, you don't have to sort the documents and you or your tax advisor can still find everything again.
To make it more pleasant for everyone involved, Albrecht has some simple tips on how to pre-sort your documents:
Especially when working with a tax advisor, a lot is already possible today to digitise one's tax return. For some years now, it has been possible for the tax advisor to digitally request wage data, information on parental allowance payments, health insurance contributions or information on unemployment benefits from the respective tax authorities via the so-called authorisation database. "This way I can already enter the data in the tax return without the client having to search for the necessary receipts or documents for it," Mr Albrecht explains to me.
The key to success is the DATEV tax programme. The tax advisor can use it to compare the electronically transmitted tax assessment directly with the tax return and see where something has been changed.
For fileee users, DATEV opens up great possibilities in cooperation with the tax advisor. Simply link fileee with LexOffice and import the data directly into your tax advisor's DATEV system. DATEV recognises all information automatically, which saves your tax advisor a lot of time and you a lot of money.
In fact, this is already the case in Denmark and other countries, where the tax return is sent to the taxpayer electronically, already filled in by the tax office, and only needs to be released. In the long term, this is also the goal in Germany, but Mr Albrecht warns: "Of course, there is a risk that I will not claim certain income-related expenses for tax purposes, because it is convenient if everything is already entered and I just have to press ok.
Finally, Albrecht has an important tip that you as a fileee user will certainly like to hear and can implement quite easily:
"The most important thing is to scan as many receipts as possible, even if they may not all be usable afterwards. It's better to keep too many receipts digitally than too few.
We have put together a list of useful tips on how to prepare fileee for the tax return and much more on our tax page. Just take a look.
