Can 'digital nomads' deduct travel expenses?
May 8, 2016 | 40,00 EUR | answered by Steuerberater Udo Glinka
As a freelance UI/UX designer, I travel from place to place for most of the year and work remotely. Every few months, I come back to Germany before continuing on. Consequently, there are regular travel expenses such as taxi/Uber, flights, and accommodation (Airbnb/hotel).
Are such travel expenses tax deductible? And if so, which costs can be taken into account? Can the same costs possibly be considered in the input tax deduction?
Thank you in advance.
Hello,
based on the information provided to me, I answer your inquiry as follows and give my initial assessment.
As I understand your explanations, you have a residence in Germany and are therefore subject to unlimited tax liability in Germany. Since your question focused solely on deductible travel expenses, I will not go into the question of tax liability in detail, but I recommend that you further investigate this if you have not already done so.
Travel expenses can only be taken into account within the scope of your profit determination (and also within the scope of turnover tax declarations) if they are incurred as a result of your self-employed activity.
This is the case, for example, when you travel to appointments with your clients or need to be in certain locations for professional reasons (e.g. to be closer to them).
For privately motivated trips, the deduction ban according to § 12 Income Tax Act applies, as they are attributable to private lifestyle.
For business trips, you can deduct expenses such as: flight and train costs, taxi or rental car. Possibly also flat rate mileage allowances if you use your own car that is not part of your business assets. In addition, so-called additional meal expenses for absences from your respective base are possible. Etc.
VAT amounts may be included in travel expenses, which you can claim in the context of VAT pre-registrations or the annual VAT declaration. For example, for domestic flights, taxis, etc.
The difficult part will be to make the professional motivation credible.
I hope my explanations have been helpful to you.
With sunny regards,
Udo Glinka (tax advisor)
