Annual Tax Act 2022
Necessary adjustments
With the Annual Tax Act 2022, the tax legislator is making due adjustments to EU law and various amendments to the law in line with the case law of the European Court of Justice and the Federal Fiscal Court. In addition, in the opinion of the Federal Ministry of Finance, there is a need to implement an unavoidable need for technical regulation concerning procedural and jurisdictional issues, consequential amendments, and adjustments due to previous amendments to the law and corrections of errors.
Wesentliche Änderungen
The main changes included in the bill are:
- Abolition of the possibility to depreciate buildings according to the actual useful life (effective from 2023). Instead, the linear depreciation rate for residential buildings is to be increased from 2% to 3% from 2024 (Section 7 (4) of the German Income Tax Act/EStG-E).
- Full deduction of special expenses for old-age provision expenses is to be possible as early as 2023, and not as planned only from 2025 (Sec. 10 (3) Sentence 6 EStG).
- Increase in the savers' lump sum from the current € 801.00 or € 1,602.00 in the case of joint assessment to € 1,000.00 or € 2,000.00 (Section 20 (9) EStG-E). The higher lump sums are to apply retroactively from 2022.
- Loss offsetting across spouses: According to BFH case law (ruling of 23.11.2021 VIII R 22/18), losses on the income from capital assets of one spouse could not be offset against gains from capital income of the other spouse as part of the joint assessment under the flat-rate taxation. The JStG 2022 is intended to create a corresponding legal basis for loss offsetting between spouses. The new regulation is to apply retroactively to January 1, 2022.
- Increase in the education allowance within the meaning of Section 33a of the German Income Tax Act (EStG) from € 924.00 to € 1,200.00 from 2023.
- Retroactively from 2021, the basic pension supplement, which is the amount of the pension paid on the basis of the basic pension supplement, is to be made tax-free.
Status: September 27, 2022
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