Claiming back taxes when a spouse moves to Germany

Hi,

My situation:
I will be getting married in India around 2nd week of Dec 08. My (would be) spouse is a citizen of India. I hold Australian citizenship.
I am currently living in BW and got a residence permit.
I found that if my spouse can get registered in Germany before 31st Dec 08, then I will be able to get back some of my tax in 2008. The total amount would be around 2000 Euro.

My questions:
1) What kind of documents would we need to register legally as married?
2) Would she be able to get a visa to enter Germany before 26th Dec 08, provided we get married before 20th Dec? (and then register as married before end of the year).
3) (If spouse visa is not possible so quickly) Would it be possible for her to enter using a Tourist visa and register as my spouse? (and if so, can this tourist visa be later used to obtain a residence permit?)

Has anyone done #3 above and succeeded?

Thanks in advance

PS: apologies if this has been discussed before. Please direct me the appropriate post.

If you get married abroad, the marriage is generally accepted by German authorities, if authenticated by the relevant German embassy. Visas can take several months from the time you submit your application, depending on the country of residence (India presumably being one of the countries where processing might take a while). No chance at all within two weeks, I'd say.

From a tax perspective, I doubt that you can get the refund for the full year, because AFAIK she only gets treated as your spouse tax-wise from the day she moves to Germany (i.e. if that happens in mid-December, that would only be for a few days, not for the full year). Not totally sure about that point, though.

We got married (in the states) on Dec 28th and husband was able to claim me as a spouse for the whole tax year, which lowered his taxable income rate from 40 some percent to about 28%. That was a huge bonus, but I'm unemployed here. Timing of the visa didn't matter for us as long as we were able to prove we were married by Dec 31st. Hope that helps. (Our marriage license was in English and didn't need to be translated where we live). Hope that helps.

When did you move to Germany? Did you already live here before getting married?

Hi, moctoj2, When did you enter Germany? did you do it before Dec 31st or in the new year? Did you use your US marriage license?

Re. post by tom_a, I think (from what I've heard), its possible to claim tax benefits for the entire year provided you are registered as married before the end of the financial year (Dec 31st in Germany). Not very sure if my spouse has to be physically present in Germany at the time of registering, but I'd assume so.

I went to the registration office with this query but the lady spoke only German and I spoke only English
I will take a translator next time I visit. However, I wanted to find this info asap as I need to book return tickets.

Thanks for the replies BTW.

I moved here in July 2008. I already live here before getting married.

Tried to clarify via Google search, but failed.

In any case, you can only do a joint filing of your income tax if you live together, and more specifically, live together within Germany. So she definitely needs to be here (and be here to stay, not just visiting) before year-end. What I'm not sure of is if you retroactively get the joint filing for the whole year. Might also depend on her income situation in India, and possibly on Indian-German taxation treaties (?).

§26(1)EStG: The tax advantages of being married will only apply if both spouses are "unbeschränkt steuerpflichtig" in germany starting at any time within the periode you are getting taxed for (2008 in your case).
§1(1)EStG: You are "unbeschränkt steuerpflichtig" in germany, if you are registered in germany.

So if your wife is registered in a german city at dec 31 2008 (and therefor "unbeschränkt steuerpflichtig"), you will get the advantage for the whole year 2008. Otherwise you will get nothing. In moctoj2´s case, I assume she has been married in the US, but was already registered in germany.

There are a couple of minor details that I left out and of course I might be mistaken. As always: ask a tax advisor to be on the safe side.

Ummm... "Doch", as they say in German.

First, some background information:

I am assuming that the OP's tax category is 1. When you get married, if both spouses work and have a similar level of income, they are moved to tax category 4 on the following year and as far as the net salary is concerned, it makes little to no difference.

However, if one of the spouses does not work or earns considerably less than the other, the one who makes more money is moved to category 3, paying less tax, and the other one is moved to 5, paying more. But since the spouse in Cat. 5 earns less, and since the taxes are calculated as a percentage of your income, the actual total amount of taxes the couple pays can be much less.

As for the refund, when you get married in 2008, even if it is on the 31st of December, you are considered married for the whole year and your tax category is also considered to be that of a married person for the whole year (e.g. cat. 3). Therefore, you get the refund that arises from changing from cat.1 to, say, cat.3.

Also, if the marriage takes place in this year and the wife is not able to come to Germany, it makes no difference as far as the tax category is concerned, but the process is slightly more complicated. You have to document that you got married in 2008 and that your wife is not working or has considerably less income, which would allow you to change your tax cat. from 1 to 3.

This was the bit I am sure about, because I have done the exact same thing. We got married on the 14th of December and got the refund for a full year.

There is another detail you might want to check with a tax professional:

It might be possible to get an additional refund if your wife lives in another country for a certain period of time. This might come under the heading of double household, which would mean a higher refund. However, this would only be possible for the actual time you were married and not the whole year. I cannot give any details about this bit, nor can I guarantee that you will get a higher refund. As I said, a tax consultant can help you with this.

Hope this helps...

I came to Germany in Jan 07, married about 15 days earlier and did not live here beforehand. My husband had been a resident for 3.5 yrs by then. We moved to a new village and apt once I arrived so he had to re-register us in the new village. You have 10 days to re-register. That's where we showed my passport and our marriage license. The tax year ends Dec 31st but you don't file your taxes until later. He changed his marital status with his employer and then took that info to the (tax office). He also had to show our marriage license to the tax office. So for his '06 taxes he got a break for being married 3 days before the end of the year.

If you've done it, you must be right. What confuses me about it is: Don't you have to have a common household within Germany to be able to do a joint filing?

(Edit: Moctoj seems to say the same thing, so if both of you did it, there's hardly any doubt that things are as you say...)

just a clarification: He changed his status at work in January 07, not December. Memo's post was what I understand about the process as in Category 1 and 3.

Tom_a - in the states if your child is born before midnight, Dec 31st, you can claim it as a dependent for the whole year (I think).

I believe a slight correction is necessary. I see now that I wasn't clear above. What I have done was the marrying and getting a refund for the whole year bit. My wife was already registered here, and she was living with me.

But when the spouse is living abroad, you are entitled to a tax refund, as I found out due to a mistake someone made. There is a special form that needs to be filled, showing that your spouse doesn't earn money or earns less money. (We needed a different form for a completely different issue and the form concerning the spouse's income was what we received). As I said, the process there is more complicated, but the OP can go to the Finanzamt Service-Zentrum if his German is up to scratch (I believe it's right next to Arbeitsamt in Stuttgart, so quite central) and they will give better information there.

Actually the law says: the spouses cant be permanently separated
-but to meet this requirement it´s enough that they plan to move together some time in the future.

Hi Memo,

Firstly, its true that I am in Category 1 and will be going to Category 3. My wife doesn't plan to work for the first 6-12 months after marriage.

I am not clear about the second point. You mentioned that "Also, if the marriage takes place in this year and the wife is not able to come to Germany, it makes no difference as far as the tax category is concerned..."

Does this mean, it makes no difference from the previous scenario you mentioned (when the wife is physically present in Germany and I'm in Category 3), or it makes no difference from me being in Category 1?

My other question is, is it possible to convert to Category 3, even if my spouse is not in Germany?
I will go to the Immigration dept. to ask the questions. As you might have guessed, my German is not up to scratch.. but I'll manage somehow.

This is not true. When you change your tax card it is for the whole fiscal year, AFAIK. When I got married the first time, I changed the tax card and after I filed the tax reports I got some money back. Unfortunately this thing works as well in the other way around and I did not know it. I got divorced and then I was sent back to category 1 and I had to pay A LOT of taxes back. Lesson learned: Get married in December and get divorced in January.