How to Deal with German Taxes

A Short Presentation For Foreign Students

by Dr. Volker Bastert

Volker has served AStA’s Sozialbüro as a consultant for several years. It turned out that more and more inquiries about tax details came in from students who were not born in Germany. So quite a few things were not so familiar to them. They couldn’t ask their parents or siblings, what is a minijob? What does it take to become self-employed? Is it against the law in Germany to start invoicing software programming services? Do I need to apply for a license? Do I have to inform the Tax Office, or the City of Paderborn Gewerbeamt? And what about all these strange amounts withheld on a German payslip? Is there a chance to get this refunded? Will I need to file an application for that?

Volker found out that all these foreign students’ questions took more time than he had budgeted for student consulting. It was quite unfair, though, to use more time for individual consulting to foreigners when there was a line of domestic students who just had short questions which could be handled in ten minutes. And in many ways questions asked by foreign students were similar. So he suggested let’s have a presentation. Speak about questions he encountered most frequently. Provide some answers to them. And maybe a little extra time at the end where individual problems can be discussed.

The setting is November 24 (Wednesday), 6 p.m. (18.00 hours) – 7.30 p.m.

Room: Q 0.101