To calculate your travel costs with the distance allowance, you need to know how many days you worked in a year. The Taxfix app makes it easy for you and calculates the number for you. We explain exactly how this works and what information you need to provide.
Content:
- Working days are important for the distance allowance
- How do I determine the number of days I work?
- Do I have to prove my working days?
- How Taxfix calculates your working days
Working days are important for the distance allowance
The number of days you work plays an important role in your income tax return. It determines the amount of your deductible travel costs in the form of the distance allowance.
For each working day, you can deduct 30 cents from your tax for each kilometre you travel to work.
Example:
Lisa worked 230 days in 2021. She travels 15 kilometres from her home to work. She can therefore deduct 1,035 euros as travel costs in her tax return:
230 (days) x 15 (kilometres) x 0.3 euros = 1,035 euros.
How do I determine the number of days I work?
You can easily calculate your working days by subtracting from 365 days a year all the days on which you did not travel to work, for example:
- Weekends off
- Public holidays
- Training days
- Holidays
- Sick days
- Home office days
However, you do not have to carry out this calculation yourself. All you have to do is enter key data in the Taxfix app. The app uses common standard values - such as 250 working days per year for a 5-day week - as the basis for the calculation. You can find out exactly how to enter the data below.
Do I have to prove my working days?
In general, you do not have to prove your working days. However, if you work more days than usual, for example, because you did not take a holiday, you must be able to prove this. The best way to do this is to get a certificate from your employer. If there are no other major irregularities in your working days, the tax office will not ask for any proof.
How Taxfix calculates your working days
Our app calculates the number of days you have travelled to work based on the information you provide. This number of days is then used to calculate your travel costs.
To calculate the number of working days, enter the following information:
Period ("When was this regular route to work?"):
Enter the period of time during which you travelled to work. If you had the same commute throughout the year, enter 01.01. to 31.12. as the period.
If you used the commute in a shorter period, you enter it according to the same principle: for the first half of the year, for example, the period from 01.01. to 30.06.
Working days per week ("In that time period, how many days per week did you travel this route to work?"):
Record here the number of days per week on which you usually commute to work. For a regular 5-day week, enter "5". Please note that the question is about the commute to your workplace.
If the number of working days per week on which you travelled to work was irregular, e.g. you worked three times in one week and five times in the next, you can calculate the average number of commutes per week in the corresponding period in advance yourself.
Holidays, sickness and other absences:
In the following questions you record the number of days on which you did not go to work because of holidays, illness or other reasons. Other reasons could be days spent in the home office, a business trip or professional training.
In the first step, our app determines the total number of working days within the specified period. Finally, all days on which you did not travel to work due to holiday, illness or other reasons are subtracted.
In this way, the number of days on which you actually travelled to work in the specified period is calculated and displayed directly in the app. If the value is not correct, you can correct it here. If you have any doubts, you can ask your employer for the number of days you have worked.