(2022)
What is the instructor allowance?
Do you earn income from part-time work, e.g. as an instructor, educator, trainer, or similar occupation? This income is tax-free up to an amount of 3,000 Euro per year (until 2020: 2,400 Euro) (§ 3 No. 26 EStG). The same limit applies to part-time artistic activities or if you care for elderly, sick, or disabled people on a part-time basis. The condition is that the work is carried out on behalf of the public sector or for charitable, benevolent, or religious purposes.
If you earn more than 3,000 Euro in your job, you must declare the income as income from self-employment or employment.
Beneficiaries under the instructor allowance include:
- Sports trainers or team supervisors
- Choir leaders, orchestra conductors, or church organists
- Youth leaders, holiday supervisors
- Paramedics at sports events, cultural events, and parades
- The following activities are not eligible
- Board members
- Cashiers or equipment managers of a sports club
- Animal trainers
- Hall managers
The COVID-19 vaccination is a mammoth task. Therefore, there should be a tax concession for those who volunteer in vaccination or test centres or mobile vaccination teams. The dedicated helpers make an important contribution to health protection and combating the pandemic. As early as 2020 and 2021, volunteers in the vaccination and test centres could benefit from the so-called instructor or volunteer allowance.
The finance ministries of the federal states and the Federal Ministry of Finance have now decided to extend these concessions for the year 2022 (source: Ministry of Finance Baden-Württemberg, announcement of 7.2.2022). The following regulations apply for the years 2020 to 2022:
- For all those directly involved in vaccination or testing - i.e. in information sessions or in the vaccination or testing itself - the instructor allowance applies. In 2020, the instructor allowance was 2,400 Euro, since 2021 it has been 3,000 Euro per year. Those involved in the administration and organisation of vaccination or test centres can claim the volunteer allowance. This was 720 Euro in 2020 and increased to 840 Euro from 2021. This also applies to mobile vaccination and test centres.
- Due to tax regulations, volunteers in the test centres can only claim the instructor or volunteer allowance if the client or employer is a charitable organisation or a public employer, such as the state or a municipality.
- For the vaccination centres, the federal and state governments have agreed that the instructor and volunteer allowance can also be considered if the vaccination centre is operated on behalf of a legal entity under public law with the involvement of private individuals or entirely by private individuals.
- Both the instructor and volunteer allowances only apply to remuneration for part-time work. This is usually the case if these activities do not take up more than one-third of the working hours of a comparable full-time position or if the regular weekly working hours do not exceed 14 hours. This also applies to helpers who do not have a main occupation, such as students or pensioners.
- The allowances are annual amounts granted to volunteers only once per calendar year. If there are several activities for which the instructor allowance is applicable (e.g. helper in the vaccination area and trainer of a youth team), the income must be added together. The same applies to the volunteer allowance.
- If the volunteers are employed part-time in both the vaccination/testing area and the administration/organisation of the vaccination and test centres, both allowances can be considered simultaneously. However, this requires that the activities are agreed upon and remunerated separately.
Doctors' surgeries are not COVID-19 vaccination centres in this sense. If doctors pay their staff a bonus for the additional work, the instructor or volunteer allowance cannot be claimed. Part-time helpers are usually considered employees and therefore earn income from employment.
The occasionally held view that self-employed income may be involved is not shared by the tax authorities - as far as can be seen. The allowances of 3,000 Euro or 840 Euro can also be taken into account by the employer when calculating the income tax. In this case, however, the employee must confirm in writing to the employer that the respective allowance has not already been "used up" elsewhere. The employer must keep the declaration in the payroll account.
If pharmaceutical staff were employed in the vaccination centres and received their remuneration from the Chamber of Pharmacists, no income tax was usually deducted in 2021, as there appear to be special leniency agreements between the tax authorities and the Chambers of Pharmacists. The income must then be declared and taxed in the employee's tax return. Caution: From 2022, this leniency regulation is no longer expected to apply, meaning that income tax must also be paid for pharmaceutical staff if the tax-free allowances are exceeded.
