General information on employee assessment

General information

Your wage tax is calculated as if you had earned the same amount over the entire year. If your income has fluctuated – due to a change of job, for example – an employee assessment is worthwhile. This will cause the tax to be recalculated and distributed equally across the year. This often reveals that too much tax has been paid and there will be a wage tax credit direct to your account. On the other hand, if in your case it results in an additional tax payment, you may withdraw your application for employee assessment, unless there are grounds for compulsory assessment.

With an employee assessment (Form L 1), you can claim the following after the end of the year:

• Single-earner or single-parent tax credit (even if this has already been claimed from the employer)
• Multiple-child bonus
• Lump sum for commuters (unless this has already been claimed from the employer)
• Additional contribution to health insurance for co-insured dependants
• Any mandatory insurance contributions on account of marginal employment
• Additional income-related expenses (e.g. specialist literature, professional development training costs)
• Any special expenses that have not been automatically notified
• Support money deduction (Form L 1k)
• From 2019: Family Bonus Plus (Form L 1k)
• Extraordinary burdens (Form L 1ab, e.g. due to disability)
• Any tax-exempt amounts for holders of Victims’ Welfare certificates and passes

For assessment years from 2016, employees have in certain cases received their tax credit automatically if all of their income is subject to salary tax (Employee assessment without application).

Voluntary employee assessment

Employees who are expecting a tax refund can submit an employee assessment to the tax office (→ BMF)^{German text} on their own account using form L 1.

Persons subject to wage tax (office-holders, employees, officials, pensioners) are assessed for income tax (→ USP) by the tax office under the ‘employee assessment’ (previously ‘annual settlement’) process.

A tax refund can normally be expected in the following cases:

• If during the year you have received different levels of income and your employer has not used the rolling-up process
• If during the year you have changed employer or were not employed for the whole year
• If, due to your low level of pay, you are entitled to "SV repayment" (tax credit)
• If you are entitled to the single-earner/single-parent tax credit or a lump sum for commuters that has not been taken into account in your current salary calculation.
• If you are claiming income-related expenses, special expenses or extraordinary burdens that have not yet been taken into account in a discretionary assessment of evidence.

Mandatory employee assessment

Under the following conditions, you must enter an employee assessment (mandatory assessment) using Form L 1:

If your income in the relevant year has exceeded a certain amount

Values per year

• Until 2022: 12,000 Euro
• 2023: 12,756 Euro
• 2024: 13,981 Euro

and the following specific points apply:

• If the single-earner/single-parent tax credit, the increased transportation deduction or increased pensioner credit has been applied in the current salary calculation but the conditions for these have not been met.
• If during the calendar year you have been in receipt, at least temporarily, of two or more incomes simultaneously that are subject to wage tax and that have not have been jointly taxed for wage tax purposes (e.g. company pension alongside ASVG pension).
• If a lump sum for commuters was taken into account, but the requirements were not met or an amount not due was taken into account.
• From 2019: If a Family Bonus Plus has been included in the salary calculation but the conditions for this have not been met or if it transpires that a sum to which you were not entitled has been applied

oesterreich.gv.at also provides information on the subject of the lump sum for commuters and on aspects of tax law for persons with disabilities and traders (→ USP).

If, in addition to income subject to wage tax, you have received other income (e.g. income from trading or from rentals and lettings) exceeding a total amount of 730 Euro (assessment-free limit), you must similarly submit a tax return. In this case, an income tax return must be used (form E1 together with supplement E 1a for business income).

Deadlines

• Voluntary employee assessment
  You have five years in which to apply for an employee assessment (e.g. the application for 2023 can be made up to the end of December 2028).
• Mandatory employee assessment
  Deadline: 30 April or (for online returns) 30 June of the following year

Competent authority

The tax office (→ BMF)^{German text}

Procedure

You can send your application for an employee assessment to the tax office electronically via FinanzOnline. You can, of course, also still send you application by post or submit it in person to your tax office. The tax office processes applications in order of receipt.

The tax office will carry out an employee assessment at your request and transfer the wage tax credit to your account.

Do not enclose any pay slips with the declarations that you send in order for the employee assessment to be carried out. These are sent to the tax office by the employer (or the body paying the pension). Nor should you enclose with your declarations any records (invoices, acknowledgements, remittance advices) for income-related expenses, special expenses or extraordinary burdens. Retain these records, for seven years, though, as you must be able to present them if they are demanded by the tax office.

If you yourself do not submit or are not required to submit an employee assessment return, the tax office (→ BMF)^{German text} will, in the following circumstances, ask you to submit a return (by sending a Form L1^{German text}) and will carry out a mandatory assessment:

• If during the calendar year you have been in receipt, at least temporarily, of two or more incomes simultaneously that are subject to wage tax and that have not have been jointly taxed for wage tax purposes (e.g. company pension alongside ASVG pension)
• If during the calendar year you have been paid sick pay out of statutory social security funds, have received money under the Armed Forces Payments Act (e.g. for troop or squad exercises), have received payment of a service voucher or if mandatory social security payments have been repaid
• If payments have been received from the Insolvency Remuneration Fund.
• If a discretionary assessment of evidence has been included in your salary calculation during the relevant calendar year.

Further information

Back-payments and corrective payments

A corrective payment may be required in particular if multiple payments subject to wage tax have been received simultaneously and were not jointly taxed when the payments were calculated. In this case, each body or pension fund making a payment will have calculated the wage tax due only on the basis of the sums or pensions that it alone has paid out. This means that too little wage tax will have been paid in total.

During the employee assessment, these payments are taxed as if you had received the total in the form of a single payment. You will thus be in the same position as a person who has just one employment but has received the same wage or pension as has been paid to you from a number of sources. In such cases, regular prepayments must be made; these will be balanced against the demands for outstanding tax and will reduce the latter or ensure that there is no need for a corrective payment.

Prepayments

Those liable for income tax must make quarterly prepayments equalling the anticipated income tax (→ USP).

Prepayments may be required from those subject to wage tax in particular if multiple payments subject to wage tax have been received simultaneously and were not jointly taxed when the payments were calculated. The first time that two payments occur together, it may happen that in that year, the corrective payment for the previous year coincides with the prepayment for the current year. On the other hand, the prepayments for the current year will save you having to make possible corrective payments as a result of the subsequent assessment for this year.

Income tax return (Form E 1)

You are required to submit an income tax return (Income tax return – E 1^{German text} and additional enclosures) if

• In addition to income subject to wage tax, you have received other income (e.g. from contracts for work, income as a new self-employed person, income from rentals and lettings) totalling more than 730 Euro. Fully taxed capital yields do not count towards this total.
• You have received income from capital assets from which no capital yields tax has been deducted (Enclosure E 1kv)
• You have received income from private taxable sales of land that were not taxed at the time of the sale.

Deadline: 30 April or (for online returns) 30 June of the following year

Taxation of multiple pensions

Where multiple pensions are received simultaneously (e.g. statutory pensions, civil service pensions, pensions from previous service with a federal province, pensions from domestic pension funds), joint taxation is required in order to avoid the need for prepayments and corrective payments.

If you receive a company pension in addition to your ASVG^{German text}(social security) pension, there is no joint taxation requirement. In such cases, however, the previous employer can assume responsibility for the payment and taxation of your ASVG pension (although it is not obliged to do so).

Further links

• Employees' assessment (→ BMF)^{German text}
• Employee assessment without application – automatically (→ BMF)^{German text}
• Video on employee assessment without application (→ BMF)^{German text}
• The Tax Book (→ BMF)^{German text}
• E-learning for FinanzOnline (→ BMF)^{German text}
• The 10 best tax tips for employees (→ AK)^{German text}
• Video: "Get your money back!" (→ AK)^{German text}

Link to form

• FinanzOnline^{German text}
• Employee assessment – application – L 1^{German text}
• Employee assessment – supplement to include exceptional expenses – L 1ab^{German text}
• Employee assessment – supplement to include children – L 1k^{German text}

Forms^{German text} on this topic

Forms L 1, L 1i, L 1ab and L 1k have been machine-read to avoid errors and improve processing. For this reason, the relevant forms are no longer available as downloadable versions but can be ordered free of charge on the website of the → Federal Ministry of Finance^{German text}. Only the accessible forms for blind and partially sighted people are still downloadable. It is even quicker to handle the employee assessment through FinanzOnline.