A larger maintenance invoice for a rented residential building is to be spread for tax purposes over several years. For your financial plan two decisions must be kept separate: when you actually pay the invoice and how a suitable expense for this may be treated for tax purposes. A tax distribution does not create an instalment agreement with the executing company.
Clarify the nature of the expense first
§ 82b EStDV permits, under its conditions, the even distribution of larger maintenance expenses over two to five years. It covers buildings outside a business asset that mainly serve residential purposes at the time the expense is incurred; the provision specifies this criterion. [VERTEILUNG] Whether your measure is suitable maintenance expense at all must first be assessed professionally. Manufacturing or acquisition costs are not converted into distributable maintenance expense merely by a different heading.
Therefore gather the description of the measures, invoices, building use and previous tax classification. This page does not state any monetary threshold at which the requirement “larger” is deemed to be met as a general rule.
The payment year remains in the cash plan
In the hypothetical case an invoice of 20.000 euro is paid in full in year one. For the learning model the tax distributability is explicitly assumed to have already been clarified. If distributed over four years this results arithmetically in four equal amounts of 5.000 euro each.
Your cash plan still shows a 20.000 euro disbursement in the first year. Four annual tax items of 5.000 euro must not be put in place of this payment. Nor are 5.000 euro deductible expense a disbursement of 5.000 euro by the tax office.
Compare more than the sum of the deductions
Please ask your tax advisor for a comparison of the permissible options with your actual income circumstances in the years concerned. Future open incomes should be marked as assumptions. An equal total deduction can have different effects in time and for different persons; no generally best distribution period follows from this page.
You should also name any planned sale or change of use. § 82b paragraph 2 regulates for disposal, contribution into business assets or end of income generation the treatment of the part not yet taken into account. With multiple owners paragraph 3 prescribes the same distribution period. [VERTEILUNG] Such events therefore belong in the consultation before the choice.
A well-founded decision finally contains the professional cost type, the chosen permissible period and a still complete payment plan. The tax choice can change the timing of the tax effect. The payment owed today to the company must be financed separately.