The Finanzamt is the German tax office.

Normally, you only contact with the Finanzamt will be your annual tax return – the Einkommenssteuererklärung.

However, if you are self-employed then you will come into close contact with it as you are involved in Umsatzsteuer (VAT) for your business and taxes such as Lohnsteuer for your employees.

The Finanzamt also collects Church Tax on behalf of the churches and if you buy a flat or a house in Germany then they will also send you a bill for Grunderwerbssteuer (land purchase tax).

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

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Tags: Finanzamt, Steuer, Steuererklärung, Tax office

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Office Pack
• Why tax is a big issue in Germany
• Zündwarensteuer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 11:53 pm and is filed under German Words Explained, Podcasts, Tax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.