Ansparabschreibung - tax savings for self-employed

Any taxexperts here to tell us how and if we can do an"Ansparabschreibung" for 2004 to reduce our profit (we are selfemployed) and therefore our taxpayment, even after we gave already given in our papers ? Further questions would be: how many years in advance can we put money aside? does it have to be the same amount every year? (impossible to plan...)

I know its 6% interest a year if we don´t use it. But we will definately have to use it. We will need a new car within the next 3 years...for example

If you have already submitted your returns then you are probably too late. However if you can show a need for capital investment in the future, e.g. for machinery or a vehicle (MUST be 100% for business use, not one you plan to share with your private life), then you can offset say 30% of the estimated cost per year. Note - you must ultimately buy the said item, or later make a justification for non-purchase (which may result in back tax on the allowed offset). This is NOT a way of reducing profit in good years to avoid tax - they're onto that one!

YL6