Hello,

I am an Indian and have been working in Germany since Jan'11.I have also done my masters from Germany.

I do not intend to stay in Germany for very long, maximum 2-3 years more.

I plan to get married in Dec'12. I have the following questions,

1. I have read on internet that my future spouse is not allowed to work for 2 years fromt the start of her stay in Germany. Is that correct?

2. She has a Masters in Public Health, so does being a Master provide any exemption to the 2 year no-working clause?

3. As I do not want to affect her career, my plan is that she continues her work in India. For that matter, I want to know if it is possible that she comes here on a spouse visa, get a residence permit here and then go back to India for her work. I then also change my tax class to III. Is it possible to get the benefits of tax class 3 this way?

4. Is there any way that I can change to tax class 3 while she is on a tourist visa?

I know there were similar questions on this forum before, but regarding the 3rd question, most were very old so I want to know if some new updates have affected them.

Thanks a lot.

1. It depends upon your residence status, whether your residence permit is bound to the company.

2. I am not sure about it

3. You can change the tax class, if she comes in germany on spouse visa. for mainating her residence permit she shall not stay outside germany more than six months.( i.e twice a year she should be here, some exceptions are there) alteast a year she should be stayed in germany.

4. changing tax class on tourist visa is illegal.

So what I get from your reply is that in order to change the tax class, she should hav resided in Germany for atleast one year?

I mean at least twice in a year ( 6 months once) she should be here in Germany-with residence permit. only exception are allowed more than six months ,if u get approval from ABH.

So can I change my tax class from the moment she has a residence permit for Germany and is present here?

Also, like she would most probably come around June, so can I claim the tax return for the whole year or only from the period she starts living in Germany?

@ racorage

You can change your tax card as soon as your wife comes to Germany on a spouse visa.

you can claim the tax for the entire year provided that you wife comes before 31 december.

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Claiming taxes for the previous years has nothing to do the time of arrival, it has to do with year of mariage (date of mariage), at least that is what happened in my case.

if you got married on 31st dec 2009, you will have it considered for the whole 2009 even if the wife gets here only on 2011, is goes without saying that the same holds for 2010 and 2011.

Be careful about cheating this class III thing, it costs lots of money and an issue in your whole case, I ve heard.

cheers

Bolo

I do not intend to cheat anyone.
Just doesn't make sense for me (or my spouse) to not be allowed to work. So my plan is that she can continue her career in India, visiting me every 6 months for some time (this is as per the rule).

But being a Non-EU citizen, I do not think that if I get married in dec'2012, I can claim the tax back for the whole year of 2012 since my spouse didnt arrive in Germany. Are you sure that the rule about getting tax back for the whole year irrespective of spouse residence is applicable to both EU and non-EU citizens?

As a non EU you can claim back the taxes only when the spouse resides with you and gets registered at the same address.

So if you marry in DEC'12 and your wife stays in India, you cannot claim back the taxes for 2012 and also cannot cahnge your tax class 3 unless she registers here in Germany.

Yes, thats what I had understood from my search on the internet about this issue.

Just to clarify once more, so if my wife comes to Germany in June 2013, I can claim the tax return for the whole year of 2013 or only the time from june 2013 onwards?

I am a non EU citizen btw living here with the NE. Well u wud be able to claim everything back, and change as well ur tax once she lives here. during the year 2010, I claimed 2008, 2009, and 2010, i got married in 2008. only after she arrived in 2010 and got registered at my place, i could changed from I to III and i did my steuererklärung (tax declaration) for those three year and got taxed as class III, just be patient.

The good thing is that the 2008 and 2009 are calculated with interest rate and it can add up to a couple of hundred euros

cheers

Bolo_FFM

@ Baudouin66

I got married on dec 2009 and my wife will be coming to germany this month dec 2011 with residence permit. earlier she had cam here in visit visa.

I had already filed tax return on 2009,

Is it possible that if i can claim the tax for 2010 under catgeory III...