New in 2012: the end of the Lohnsteuerkarte (maybe)

At the beginning of 2011 I wrote about how the Lohnsteuerkarte was going to be replaced by an electronic system, the ELStAM, and for the past 12 months anyone arriving in Germany has no longer received their Lohnsteuerkarte on arrival when they register at the Einwohnermeldeamt, but instead has had to apply for written confirmation of their tax status at the tax office (Finanzamt).

But during the course of the year the starting date for the new system has been pushed back a number of times, and now it may even not come into force until the beginning of 2013!

Apparently there have been technical problems in implementing the system, but also quite a bit of the data that had been imported into it appears to have been wrong, leaving me wondering how this can happen if it is using the same data as was last used to print the tax cards.

This is pretty embarrassing for the German Government, considering that one of their other major IT projects – ELENA – was scrapped only a few weeks ago.

So for the time being, the 2010 cards (issued in September 2009) remain valid for anyone working in Germany and should be handed in when starting a new job, and returned when leaving a job (except for some mini-jobs”).  Under the new system, employees would just have to name their tax ID, the new Steuer-Identifikationsnummer.

For now, anyone entering the job market for the first time, eg. by moving to Germany, will still have to go to their local Finanzamt to apply for written confirmation of their tax status.

And anyone changing their tax class, eg. by getting married, will also have to go there to have their cards amended.

So watch this space (eg. sign up to our newsletter or RSS feed) to see if I’ll be announcing the new system on this site at the end of 2012, or whether my article will be called “The Same Procedure as Last Year?”