Ask a tax advisor on the topic of Income tax return

joint assessment

February 7, 2010 | 15,00 EUR | answered by Dipl.BW/SB Ulrich Stiller

Hello,
my wife and I have filed a joint tax return for 2009. My wife earned 31,000 euros and I earned 9,000 euros. A debt collection agency wants to garnish old debts from our tax refund.
Question:
Will our joint tax refund be garnished for the amount of the old debts? How does this work with separate filing? What would be more advantageous for us in any case?

Dipl.BW/SB Ulrich Stiller

Dear inquirer,

Thank you for your inquiry, which I would like to answer based on the information you provided and in the context of your situation in a first consultation as follows:

The refund claim is unfortunately fully enforceable, as it is generally assumed that a refund claim does not constitute income. Therefore, the garnishment protection for earnings pursuant to § 850c ZPO does not apply here. In the event of garnishment, you would only have the option to achieve the lifting of the garnishment under § 765a ZPO by claiming undue hardship.

In the case of separate assessment, if you are solely responsible for the debt, NO garnishment may be made against your spouse, but only against a potential refund amount from the separate assessment notice issued to you. Since the spouse is not the debtor of the enforceable claim, this claim cannot be garnished from your notice. However, there may be a significant additional payment for your spouse, as their earnings of 31,000 euros are taxed according to the basic table, which ultimately corresponds to a reclassification from tax class 3 to tax class 1.

I hope my explanations have been helpful to you.

Best regards,

Ulrich Stiller
Tax consultant