Double housekeeping
If you need a second place of residence for professional reasons, we speak of double housekeeping . Associated costs are accepted as advertising costs – even including the costs of your move!
Ride costs
Travel expenses are among the income-related expenses that are particularly common. Be it for a direct drive to the office or to reach the second residence if you have two households. Often the travel expenses represent the largest deduction for employees in the tax return. Self-employed persons and employees can deduct their travel expenses to the permanent place of work with a distance lump sum of 0.30 € for each distance kilometer.
Special editions
Special expenses that cannot necessarily be directly assigned to the professional activity are in some cases still deductible. This applies to private health or life insurance, for example.
Pension expenses
This point includes all those expenses that serve to provide for old age . These include, for example, contributions to pension insurance, the Riester pension and contributions to long-term care insurance.
Additional meal expenses
The principle is simple: if you can’t cook at home, you spend comparatively more money on your own food. You can claim these costs for additional meal expenses , whereby the achievable amounts depend on how long you leave your own place of residence.
Application costs
Application costs are clearly the costs incurred in order to generate an income. Professional application photos can therefore, for example, be removed and bring tax advantages.
Business trips & training costs
Training and business trips are important components of professional activity. They help to maintain the existing income. It is therefore obvious that these travel expenses can also be claimed as income-related expenses.
Expenses for work equipment
Expenses for work equipment are of a professional nature. But be careful: you have to prove that you use these things professionally and not in your private life.
Contributions to professional associations, unions & donations
You can also deduct all contributions to professional associations, unions or donations . For retirees in particular, they are an option for submitting income-related expenses.
Legal protection insurance for employees
The legal expenses insurance for employees is a job-related insurance. Accordingly, it is permitted to classify the contributions as income-related expenses.
Advertising expenses for internet & telephone
Internet and telephone are running costs that we would all like to classify as business expenses. However, it is hardly credible that you only use your smartphone for work. Therefore, these costs usually have to be split into professional and private parts.
Insurance
Insurance can only be applied if it relates to your job, e.g. occupational accident insurance, service liability insurance or legal protection insurance, as well as other insurances that are only necessary for professional reasons.
Moving costs
You can even deduct moving costs under certain conditions . But the move must be operational. A professional reason would be, for example, if your employer relocates to another city or if you change your job and have to move from Stuttgart to Hamburg. Even if your employer has his company in several locations and transfers you internally, there would be a professional reason. And if you have previously been a commuter and can end your double housekeeping by moving, the move will then also be tax deductible.
Delimitation problems
The last-mentioned example in particular illustrates wonderfully that costs can often not be clearly classified. Therefore, you should either divide these costs carefully into professional and private or collect information that is as accurate as possible. In case of doubt, you can prove that the costs are really only of a professional nature. The better you know your expenses and keep an eye on them, the more taxes you can save yourself. You should keep all documents carefully, especially for those expenses that cannot be clearly classified at first glance .
Calculate advertising expenses
You can calculate your advertising expenses and put them together yourself from your receipts. Otherwise, there is still the option of looking for an advertising expense calculator on the Internet that you can use online. These calculators are available in different versions, for which you can only enter numbers that have already been calculated. So you have to put together your own costs beforehand.
Tip!
It is better if you work with a good accounting program that will help you to do the costs and the calculation quickly and automatically. You can also scan your receipts and save them centrally in one place.
Conclusion
Let’s summarize: Advertising costs are all those costs that are incurred in order to enable income or to secure it permanently. Deducting these costs leads to noticeable tax benefits. Accordingly, it is worthwhile to document all expenses in a structured manner. In this way you can prove all deductible advertising expenses. If there are few or no costs, a lump sum can be used, which can bring additional benefits for married couples.
So definitely take enough time for your tax return, document your expenses and look forward to your tax savings – because you have earned them!
