How to calculate "Pendlerpauschale"

I'm trying to calculate how much it would cost for me to commute about 1 hour to Munich (for many various reasons).

I pretty sure I'm calculating the Pendlerpauschale wrong.
My understanding of the the Pendlerpauschale is that you get 0.30 euros for every kilometer over 20km, one way.
According to this, if I commute 70 km to Munich one-way, I get 50km x 0.30 = 15 Euros/day. If I take the train, I would pay 12,80 per day with a Bahncard50, meaning I would earn about 2,20 Euros per day.
That is way too good to be true. What am I doing wrong?

Pendlerpauschale is treated as a part of your work related expenses, which you can subtract from your income in your end of the year income statement. So you will have to pay less tax. But as the tax rate is (yet) less than 100%, you will gain less than the whole amount of your expenses. Anyway yes you might get a financial advantage out of this. On the other hand there will be poor guys, whose costs might be higher than the 30cent per km. It´s not fair, but it is easier and cheaper than to force every single tax payer to proof how he got to work every working day of the last year.

hey, this is a pretty interesting topic and could become relevant to me too.

I have a doubt as to how its been calculated. Got the point that its calculated for transport related costs when commuting from home to work. If i stay 50 kms away from work. Will this be reinstated for travel both ways per day or for only one way? will it be then ((50kmsx2way)-20kms)= 80kms x 0.3€ or ?
and is it calculated on a monthly basis? for 20 working days or 30 days per month basis?

cheers

it's calculated one way starting at km 21 and based on the normal work year, which the tax authorities calculate, which is 260 days, i think, unless you took or had less holiday that year..

so, if i get it right, then my pendlerpauschale calculations for an year considering that i am staying 50kms away from work would be,

(50-20)x0.3x260 = 2340€? per year?

but hows the distance calculated? i just did it in googlemaps.

Yes, this is where I'm confused.

Taking the train would be 12,80 x 260 days = 3328 euros / year
According to what I understand from the Pendlerpauschale guidelines I've read, I would get (70 - 20 km) x (0,30 Euros/km) x 260 days= 3900 euros / year back on my tax return

According to this calculation, I would gain about 600 Euros per year, and from my understanding the purpose of the Pendlerpauschale is to pay PART of your travel costs for work.

So something isn't adding up here :-/

hey.. found out something here.. a calculator http://www.pendlerrechner.de/

what i had given seems to be correct.


But again, how is the distance calculated?

One a side note, does anybody know the exact status of the 'new Pendlerpauschale change' in the German court system? When will it be reviewed and possibly changed again? Hopefully it'll be reverted back to starting from km 0 and not km 21.

Use a simple route planner, like www.map24.de. As long as your calculation seems reasonable, the Finanzamt wont waste any time in questioning it.

i think it will be decided in sept or so. as far as i understood, as well, if they revert back to km 0, then those of us who already filed tax returns, will get the difference automatically returned to us.

Hmmm...
360 days a year
- 96 saturdays and sundays
= 264
- official holidays (9 to 12)
- leave days
= ???

220 days is the normal amount of working days in germany, as far as I know

Working days in Germany 2007/2008 ...

Maybe I shouldnt have used the term working days and wrote "days you are actually driving to work" instead. But I hope in context of the topic it´s clear what I meant. You only get Pendlerpauschale for days you are actually driving to work. Therefor take the working days from that table and subtract your leave days according to your work contract.

together with any days off for illness...

The tax office works on 219 working days a year

since when does a year only have 360 days ?

hmmm.. may be, its been rounded off to the closest 360 or rather degrees and not days.

Nah I just mistyped. Anyway just use the tables and subtract leave days and sick days ...

You do not "get" the Pendlerpauschale. The Pendlerpauschale is a tax break for this set amount, raising your non-taxable income by this amount (see Freising's post above).
I.e. your income, on calculating Lohnsteuer, will be treated as if you're earning 3900 Euro less per year than you actually do. You'd pay something at least 700-800 Euro less in income tax probably just on that amount, plus you'll be put in a lower income bracket on the sliding scale.