The Bundestag approves a number of changes in tax law. These include a number of tax advantages, for example in housing construction, for solar power systems and for employees. Energy companies, on the other hand, are being asked to pay.
The Bundestag has approved the Annual Tax Act 2022, which initiates a bundle of tax law changes. As Bundestag Vice President Petra Pau announced, the coalition factions approved Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s draft, the Union voted against it, and the AfD and the Left Party abstained. The most important measures include the creation of a direct payment method for public services using the tax identification number, the extension of the fixed-rate home office allowance, tax relief for photovoltaic systems and the increase in flat-rate and tax-free allowances.
According to the Bundestag, the use of the tax identification number should make it easier to pay out certain future federal services such as emergency aid or climate funds. The home office flat rate of now six euros per day should be permanent and can be used for up to 210 days a year. Thus, the maximum deductible amount is increased from 600 euros to 1260 euros per year. In addition, there is no longer a need to keep a locked office if no other workspace is permanently available. In addition, tax and bureaucratic hurdles in the installation and operation of photovoltaic systems are to be removed retrospectively from the beginning of the year.
Accordingly, an income tax exemption will be introduced for income from the operation of photovoltaic systems up to a gross nominal output of 30 kW for single-family houses and commercial properties or 15 kW per residential and commercial unit for other buildings used primarily for residential purposes. In the future, a zero tax rate will apply to the delivery, intra-community purchase, import and installation of photovoltaic systems and electricity storage. Other measures in the annual tax law include an increase in the linear depreciation rate for the depreciation of residential buildings to three percent of the acquisition or production costs and thus a reduction in the depreciation period from the previous 50 to 33 years.
This is intended to contribute to supporting a climate-friendly new building offensive. There will also be a special depreciation for a limited period of time, with which five percent of the production costs for newly created rental apartments with the Efficiency House 40 building standard can be deducted from tax within four years up to specified limits. From the 2023 assessment period, the saver’s allowance will be increased from EUR 801 to EUR 1,000 for single people and from EUR 1,602 to EUR 2,000 for spouses or life partners. The employee lump sum increases from 1200 euros to 1230 euros. The training allowance for adult children who are in vocational training and are housed abroad increases from 924 euros to 1200 euros per calendar year. The complete deduction of special expenses for old-age provision, which was previously only planned for 2025, is already being brought forward to 2023.
The law also contains regulations on the tax liability of the energy price flat rate for pensioners and pension recipients. According to the Bundestag, additional income of 520 million euros is expected this year. The gas and heat price brake, i.e. the December aid, should also be taxable. Social compensation is planned here, so that only taxpayers who have to pay the solidarity surcharge should have their taxable income increased by the relief from the gas price brake. The EU regulation introducing an energy crisis contribution is also being implemented. According to this, profits made by companies in the oil, gas, coal and refinery industries in the financial years 2022 and 2023 should be taxed if they exceed the average profit by 20 percent compared to the years 2018 to 2021.
The tax rate should be 33 percent. According to the Bundestag, the additional tax revenue should be between one and three billion euros and contribute to financing the electricity price brake. The financial policy spokeswoman for the Union faction, Antje Tillmann, criticized the measures on tax liability for the December aid and the EU energy crisis contribution. Nobody could explain to her how the tax liability should be implemented as part of the December aid. “The obligations will only be passed in a law next year,” she said. The public utilities have already described the bureaucracy as “unaffordable”. In the case of the EU solidarity contribution, one also sees “great legal uncertainty”. Tillmann supported other of the planned legal changes, but she criticized that they would all be “made at the expense of the debt brake”. The FDP finance spokesman Markus Herbrand also emphasized that the law contained “projects that are not among the favorite projects of the liberals”.
For example, the FDP would have waived the special levy to be implemented under EU law “just as gladly as the constitutionally required revaluation of real estate as part of the inheritance tax”. However, the Union’s criticism of Finance Minister Lindner in this matter is “very hypocritical” because it assumes that he has an interest in raising a pure state tax. Lindner himself explained via the short message service Twitter that the annual tax law “contains a few drops of bitterness, but above all good news: for example tax reduction through higher flat rates, extended tax exemption for photovoltaics and tax simplification for home office”.