Little net left – that’s how much the state takes from the Christmas bonus and 13th month’s salary

The regular salary is meant for day-to-day expenses, but many employees get a few things on top of that. Christmas money, for example, is often used for gifts and a 13th or 14th month’s salary is then used to treat yourself to something.

But what’s left of the 13th month’s salary, for example? If you do the math, you will see that more wage tax is due than with current wages. That’s because the extra payment increases your tax rate.

The state branches off that much

The 13th or 14th monthly salary appears on the payslip as “other payments”. The same applies to Christmas bonuses, holiday bonuses or other one-off payments that the employer grants in addition to the current salary. And yes, additional payments are a nice thing to take with you in any case.

But there is a catch that spoils the fun a bit: The 13th month’s salary is fully taxable, which of course was to be expected. However, since there is something special about the calculation of income tax, there is less of it than you might expect. It is often assumed that an additional net salary will be paid out. But that’s not true.

The income tax for current payments can be found in the monthly income tax tables. However, they assume that you receive the same salary every month. If you suddenly receive an additional 13th monthly salary, the monthly tables will result in an excessive income tax. It would then be as if your boss had doubled your entire annual salary.

In order to avoid this, in the month of payment, the income tax for the current payment is calculated according to the monthly table and the 13th monthly salary is calculated using a special calculation using the annual table. Basically, you split the additional monthly salary into 12 small increments for the regular monthly salary. Two types of annual salary are calculated for this purpose:

• Estimated annual salary:
  It includes all ongoing remuneration for the year as well as other remuneration that has already been paid. In this case, however, the 13th monthly salary is not included and other future payments are not taken into account.
• Relevant annual salary:
  Allowances or the old-age relief amount are now deducted from the expected annual salary. This results in the relevant annual salary, for which the wage tax is calculated according to the annual table.

But the calculation goes even further: in the next step, the 13th monthly salary is added to the relevant annual salary and then the wage tax is calculated again. The difference between the two determined wage tax values ​​results in the wage tax for the 13th month’s salary, so far so cumbersome.

Sample calculation for 13th month salary

In order to calculate how much the income tax will add to the 13th month’s salary in comparison, you should first use the gross-to-net calculator. He will calculate for you how much wage tax you normally have to pay. If you take a gross monthly amount of 3,000 euros for tax class I without children and without church tax, then you will pay
372.50 euros
Income tax per working month, if you apply the statutory health insurance with an additional contribution of 1.3%.

Now you can understand the calculation made in the previous paragraph or use another calculator that specifically calculates the wage tax for other payments. To stay with the example given: For the 13th month salary, the wage tax increases to whopping
741 euros
.

Calculated differently, in this case you could also split the 3,000 euros from the 13th month’s salary over the regular 12 months’ salary. According to the above parameters, income tax of 434.25 euros would then be due per month, i.e. 61.25 euros more per month. Calculated over the whole year, you get 741 euros for the additional monthly salary.

We deliberately left out allowances in the example to keep things a little clearer.

Alternative references

Basically, other benefits are a nice thing, because many employees simply do not get them. So anyone who gets a Christmas bonus, vacation pay or a 13th and 14th month salary already belongs to a privileged group.

However, there are also alternatives that companies can look at or that can be discussed in the appraisal interview. For example, it is currently possible to pay out up to 3,000 euros to employees free of tax and social security contributions. This inflation compensation bonus is attractive for bosses and employees.

Benefits in kind are also tax- and social security-free up to 600 euros per year. If you can’t even discuss Christmas bonuses or additional monthly salaries, you might find a way to soften the boss with capital-forming benefits.

And if your company doesn’t play along at all: What is always worthwhile for employees is an income tax return.