SteuerGo FAQs

What is the non-investigation limit?

Many tax officials may deny their existence. And taxpayers cannot rely on benefiting from them, as there is no legal entitlement to the non-detection limit.

Non-detection limits are amounts – usually small – in the tax return that tax officials generally do not scrutinise closely and accept without evidence.

Here are some examples:

• Working days for travel allowance: For a 5-day week, you can state 230 working days per year, and for a 6-day week, 280 days.
• Work-related items: You can usually claim costs up to 110 Euro for the purchase and maintenance of work-related items (purchase and cleaning of work clothing) in your tax return without receipts.

 

Journeys to the primary workplace can be deducted in your tax return (Form N) via the commuter allowance. You must specify the exact number of days you actually travelled to work, as the allowance only applies to these days. Holiday and sick days must also be stated. Since 2020, business travel days and home working days have been recorded in Form N.

Calculating the exact number of working days can be tedious. To make things easier for you, tax offices have previously set so-called non-detection limits. For a five-day week, this was 220 to 230 journeys, and for a six-day week, 260 to 280 journeys between home and workplace. However, these limits are internal and not legally binding. A court ruling stated that tax offices should accept 230 days (FG Munich of 12.12.2008, 13 K 4371/07).

But the pandemic has changed everything. Many employees worked and still work from home and do not commute daily. For these days, you can claim a flat rate of 5 Euro per day as work-related expenses or even the costs for a home office. However, you cannot claim travel expenses as no journeys take place.

Tax offices increasingly require an employer's certificate of the actual working days and especially the days on which the primary workplace was visited. The rule of 220 or 230 journeys per year no longer applies automatically!