Employment office financing of language school

Hi All,

I recently went and registered at my local Arbeitsamt here in Augsburg and they told me something interesting. I have an appointment with them next week to discuss possible financing for German language study. Apparently there is a program through the Arbeitsamt which assists in paying for placement at a private language school.

Has anyone heard of or had any experience with this?

If this has been discussed before, please excuse a Newbie, but I thought I would ask. I also thought maybe some of you guys might not have heard of this and might find it useful.

Cheers,
Julian

don't you want the job, then?! My colleague is running around the corridor yelling "Alabama boy, yee ha!".. he can't wait to get some amrerican back-up in the office

but seriously, even if working, relevant classes are always tax-deductable here anyway. I get Chinese and Spanish paid for, even if I fly to spain for a week's course. Welcome to Germany, land of education..

Hi Julian,
I just sent you a PM. Am very interested. Please let me know what you find out.
Thanks,
Babs

If you are registered unemployed (in Germany) the Arbeitsamt will pay for all manner of courses or retraining to improve your employabillity. If you are a non- or poor German speaker, I'd reckon a good German language course would be a good investment for them if they can get you off the unemployment register, which is their clear goal!

If you are employed (or self-employed), then any course (including night classes) which improves your business skills is certainly tax deductible. Again, this would be easilly to apply to a German course of lessons, no matter how intensive or expensive.

Note the difference here however - in the first option the Arbeitsamt pay some or (usually) all of the costs - in the second option you pay the costs and reclaim the income tax element only...

YL6

YL6
Thanks for the info. As I will be self employed, I will keep this in mind and be sure to keep all receipts for language courses.
Thanks again,
Babs

I didn't know about it being tax deductible. Now all I have to do is generate some income on which to pay taxes, then I'll be set!