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Physical and adopted (adopted) children as well as foster children are generally taken into account for tax purposes up to the end of the calendar year in which they turn 18.

In the electronic wage tax deduction procedure (ELStAM), the employer is automatically notified of the change in the child allowance counter due to the birth of a child. The employee does not need to take action himself.

If the employer is not to be informed of the number of children, this can be requested from the tax office using the form; for the application see links.

Since the parents of a child generally receive child benefit, the child allowance and the allowance for care and upbringing or training needs do not affect the calculation of wage tax.
However, these allowances have an impact on the amount of the solidarity surcharge and, if applicable, the church wage tax.

1. Child allowance counter:

So that the employer can calculate these deductions correctly, the number of child allowances is taken into account as a tax deduction feature.
The child allowance counters are determined as follows:

• For each child to be taken into account, the numerator 0.5 generally applies.
• Deviating from this, the numerator 1.0 is only entered for married parents of a child who are not permanently separated in tax class IV / IV and in tax class III / V only for tax class III; for tax class V, no child allowance is assigned. This applies to both birth parents and adoptive parents (parts of) of a child.
• Unmarried parents of a child are assigned the child allowance counter 0.5.
• If married parents of a child separate or divorce, the child allowance counter is calculated as 0.5 for the year following the separation or divorce. The separation must be reported to the tax office, which will correct the child allowance counter accordingly (see links)
• The responsible tax office is available to answer questions about other constellations, e.g. if one of the parents remarries.

2. Transmission:

At the request of one parent, the child allowance due to the other parent can be transferred to him or her if

• the other parent essentially fails to meet his or her maintenance obligation towards the child or is not liable for maintenance due to a lack of ability to pay or
• the other parent lives abroad and is not subject to unlimited income tax.

Accordingly, no child allowance is allocated to the parent who does not provide maintenance.

3. Cheaper check:

• As part of any income tax assessment, the tax office checks whether taking the child into account for income tax purposes leads to a more favorable result than the child benefit paid over the course of the year.
• In this case, any difference will be refunded in favor. A subsequent payment cannot result from this so-called cheaper check.