Guidelines & Policies
A general guide to the different Tax Classes in Germany:
Where can I find the Tax class of an employee?
Payslips. On the right-hand top corner of the payslip, there is a section with the organizational and personal information of the employee. This can be seen in the image below:
Tax classes cannot be manually updated by us(Flink as an employer). The tax classes are updated based on the information we receive from the Tax Office/ Finanzamt through ELStAM.
Step-by-Step
1. Receive a ticket from an employee claiming they are not in their correct Tax Class. This normally occurs when employees receive their salary and see that there have been too many deductions made for the affected month.
Typical situations:
- Working Student works more than 20 hours per week. This means Payroll will have to register them as a Part-Time employee for the affected month.
- Employee has not submitted their Tax ID information. They are automatically moved to Tax Class 6.
- Employee has a second job they did not inform us about. This happens when the employee has more than one job and does not let us know. The employee should always inform us about other employment as we need to know who is the main employer. The main employer will be in Tax Class 1 and the second job will be in the according Tax bracket depending on the conditions of both employment simultaneously.
2. Open SAP and check the information of the employee. To find out their Tax Class download their Payslips.
- Employee is a Working Student who exceeded the 20h per week rule (this only applies if the employee has exceeded 80h in the same month. It will not be applicable if an employee only exceeds one or two weeks.
Go back to Zendesk and apply macro [PAYROLL] Working Student worked & 20h/week (social security contributions) - EN
- Employee tax class is 6 because the Tax ID information is missing. This can be seen on the payslip. once confirmed that the Tax ID information is missing, use the macro [PAYMENT] < EN no Steuer-ID on payslip Tax Class 6
The employee was changed to a different Tax Class because Finanzamt informed us that they either have a second job or had one in the past from which they have not yet de-registered.
In this case, please use macro [PAYMENT] Tax Class 6.
Mark the ticket as Solved
3. If an employee comes back to us elaborating more on the case, we must double-check the procedure and investigate their Payslip history. If we collect all the necessary information
(De-registration certificate from the previous employer and/or tax certificate from tax office) we can assign the ticket to Payroll DE group and in internal note ask them to adjust the tax class accordingly.
Please remember that we do not usually change the Tax Class ourselves, this is something that should come from Finanzamt as relevant information.
Tools
Zendesk: To receive employee tickets regarding their issues
SAP: To verify the employee's email address
Flowchart
Macros
Macro name | Description |
[PAYMENT] Tax Class 6 | Informing employee that Tax Class 6 could have been because of secondary employment and the employee will have to contact their Finanzamt and/ or the primary employer for clarification |
[PAYMENT] no Steuer_ ID on payslip Tax Class 6 | Used when the Tax ID of the employee is 6 due to a missing tax ID. |
[PAYMENT] Working Student worked < 20h/week (social security contributions) | The employee has worked more than 20 hours per week with a working student and this has resulted in them paying more taxes and deductions. |
Contact reasons
Contact Reason | Description |
People OPS > Personal Info > Tax Class | Tax class change/ update |
People OPS > Personal Info > Tax ID | Tax ID update |
Payroll > Clarification > Taxes & Social Contribution | Taxes and deductions clarification |