Personal Tax - Germany

Hi

I have been offered a move to Germany. Would anyone know what tax would be payable on a salary of 90k in Germany - I can then equate to my salary here

Thanks

Can the HR department of the eployer help?


stuart@buyingtolet.ie

Thanks

They did me a rough and ready guide - however wanted to independently verify it

I'm not sure exactly but hear from friends that it's about 50% - bear in mind these would be very generalised claims from people working in Germany and trying to convince me I'm better off in Ireland. I think the last time I made a comparison with a friend living there a couple of years ago I was on 30k, she was on 38k but we essentially had the same take home salary.

However, it's hard to compare directly as living in Germany is so different and what you get for your money (tax or otherwise) varies quite a bit from here. Over there you'll pay lots of different taxes, can't remember them all now - there's income tax, church tax (which you will have to pay unless when you register over there you say you don't have a religion), old age care tax, social insurance, pension etc. There's an environmental tax on fuel too as far as I remember. But then generally accomodation is cheaper or at least no more expensive than Dublin (I'd know Frankfurt best so would be thinking of prices there) and often higher quality. And eating out, shopping etc are also often less expensive than here.

Thanks for that Janet - most useful

good to know the range of taxes! I presume the 50% is a general total of all of the taxes together?

I think so. Again, this is more based on the kind of moaning friends do from time to time so won't be entirely accurate!

One other thing to note is that (particularly on a higher salary) you'll probably end up getting private health insurance and a private pension as well. Although you to pay towards both of these what you get back has gone down over the years. When I lived in Germany about eight years ago the natives were up in arms as a prescription charge had just been introduced (DM3 or DM10) but I didn't have to pay to go to a doctor at all or any more than that to get any medicine needed. It has changed since then as far as I know so it'd be worth trying to talk to a few people living over there now to see exactly what it's like.

Also, most people in Germany have lots of insurance. You should find out about Haftpflichtversicherung which is basically a personal insurance people take out to cover costs of damage they might do - one example I know of where someone wished they hadn't let this insurance lapse is where a bath was left running and caused damage to ceiling of shop underneath the flat which they had to pay for.

If you could, it'd probably be a good help to try to talk to some colleagues over there to find out about all these kind of things. There are a couple of people on here as well who've recently moved over there who might have more relevant advice too.

thanks - much appreciated