Apply for an employee savings allowance
The employee savings allowance is one of the money allowances granted by the state in Germany. The legislature would like to promote your wealth accumulation as an employee. In order to be able to claim this state subsidy, you must submit a corresponding application.
Only when you apply for capital formation benefits will your employer or a bank invest certain cash benefits for you.
State support for capital formation benefits upon application
The legislature has stipulated that your employer must, upon written request from you, conclude a contract that aims at the capital formation of salary components. There are also state funding opportunities for home loan and savings contracts and fund investments in a similar form.
- Funding of capital-building benefits is only possible if you were free to choose the type of capital-building investment and a specific institute or company.
- The grant you get from the state will vary in the future. This affects the amount of funding and also the income limits (as of 2012 - single € 20,000, married € 40,000).
- Even if the legislature may move the limits from 2013 onwards, nothing will change in the basic procedure for you.
The employee savings allowance is a state money allowance from which you as ...
Payment of the employee savings allowance only after a blocking period has expired
In any case, you will receive a so-called Annex VL from your investment institute after the end of a calendar year. Fill this out and attach it to your income tax return.
- In some cases it may happen that you receive the VL annex some time after submitting your tax return.
- Since 2007, you have been able to apply retrospectively for the employee savings allowance to be set for previous years (up to 4 years). The four years refer to the year of issue of the respective system VL. For example, you can apply for your employee savings allowance to be set for the years 2007 up to and including 2011 in 2012.
- Submit your application for the employee savings allowance to Tax office with the same form of the respective income tax return.
- You will not receive the employee savings allowance from the tax office with your income tax.
- Even if your employee savings allowance is normally set together with income tax, it works Payout amount to the relevant bank, building society or employer, where you can enter the specific investment contract completed.
Submit an application to the tax office for assessment
- Obtain an application for an income tax return from your tax office.
- On the first page you tick “Application for the determination of the employee savings allowance”.
- Attach Annex VL (certificate of capital formation benefits) from your savings partner (bank, building society, employer) to your income tax return.
- If you have several savings plans for capital-building benefits, please indicate in Appendix N how many you are submitting.
- Include the appropriate number of certificates with your tax return.
In any case, your type of investment is only entitled to the savings allowance after the applicable lock-up period has expired. You can always see on Appendix VL when a blocking period for your capital-building benefits allows actual funding.
