SteuerGo FAQs

(2022) What can be deducted for work on a vehicle?

If you carry out your professional activity on a vehicle, you generally do not have a "main place of work", so the activity is considered off-site work.

This applies to:

• Truck drivers,
• Coach drivers,
• Bus drivers,
• Tram drivers,
• Refuse collectors,
• Taxi drivers,
• Train drivers (exception: industrial railway train drivers).

You often have to report to a fixed location (pick-up point) to take over the vehicle.

What is tax-deductible?

• Journeys between your home and the pick-up point can only be deducted using the commuting allowance.
• Despite the commuting allowance, you can still deduct meal allowances as business expenses if the absence is more than 8 hours (expenses, outlays). Since there is no main place of work, you are working off-site. No main place of work is assumed; only the application of the commuting allowance is required. There is no three-month limit, as each journey is considered a new off-site activity.

Truck drivers can claim an overnight allowance of 8 Euro per calendar day as business expenses - in addition to the "normal" meal allowance. This applies to the day of arrival or departure and each calendar day with an absence of 24 hours during an off-site activity in Germany or abroad (§ 9 Abs. 1 Satz 3 Nr. 5b EStG, introduced by the "Act on Further Tax Promotion of Electric Mobility and Amendment of Other Tax Regulations").