Health insurance and tax returns

Your tax return benefits

Since 2010, health insurance providers have been able to transmit data electronically to the tax office under the Citizens’ Relief Act (Bürgerentlastungsgesetz). When your paid and reimbursed contributions, bonus and reward payments, and unemployment benefits are reported, this allows you to record all payments in your tax return, since the tax office only recognises data transmitted electronically.

This section explains everything about health insurance-related reporting to the tax office. If you have further questions, please contact your SBK consultant – feel free to use our contact form. We will call you back as soon as we can to answer your questions.

Tax-related information about the SBK Bonus Scheme

The SBK Bonus Scheme has provided the option of choosing how you would like to receive your bonus:

as a cash bonus with money paid to your bank account

as a health bonus, which you can use as tax-exempt reimbursement for sports equipment, glasses or similar health-related things.

Whether SBK is required to report your bonus to the tax office depends on which bonus option you choose. An overview is provided here:

Bonus option	Reported by SBK to tax office	Specified in your tax return
Cash bonus	Yes	Yes
Health bonus	No	No

How reporting works with the SBK Bonus Scheme

2021

Participation in the SBK Bonus Scheme

2022

You submit your booklet and SBK sends your bonus payment
The date of payment alone determines how it is assigned for tax purposes

2023

SBK reports the non-self-financed cash bonus
to the tax office and you are informed of this
Transitional regulation from 2021 to 2023:
Bonus payments of up to €150 per insured person are tax-exempt and are not reported to the tax office

Tax-related information on the SBK Retention Tariff

Based on tax regulations, we report the maximum possible reward to the tax authorities. It is irrelevant whether

the full reward has been paid,

the reward has been partially paid out and offset against services used,

the reward has been fully offset against services used, or

the services you have used exceed the amount of the reward and the health insurer has reclaimed benefits.

Timing of reporting for the SBK Retention Tariff:

2021: Participation in the SBK Retention Tariff

2022: Settlement of the SBK Retention Tariff and distribution of rewards in August 2022

2023: Reporting of the maximum possible reward per tariff level to the tax office in January 2023

You can find all information on the SBK Retention Tariff here.

We report the following data to the tax office:

Paid and reimbursed contributions

Bonus payments (from 2021 to 2023, bonus payments of up to €150* are not reported)

Reward payments

Unemployment benefits

The tax office will only recognise data transmitted electronically in your tax return. For this reason, we must transmit this data in order for you to be able to record all amounts in your tax return.

*In consideration of the applicable tax law, the bonus payment and the tax allowance for family insured persons are to be allocated to the main insured person.

We always send the reports to your tax office in the second week of January. You will then receive a tax statement confirming your reported contributions, rewards and unemployment benefits, so you always have an overview of the data the tax office holds.

Our tip: Have you registered with Meine SBK? In Meine SBK, you have the convenient option of seeing your post from SBK at any time. Learn more about Meine SBK and find out how to register here.

Entry of reported amounts in the tax return

To offset health insurance contributions, these must generally be entered in the ‘Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand’ schedule of your tax return.

Please note: We are not allowed to provide any tax information. If you have any questions, please contact your tax adviser, the tax office or an income tax assistance organisation.

SBK always reports this data to the tax office in the second week of January. You will then receive a tax statement confirming your reported contributions, rewards and unemployment benefits, so you always have an overview of the data the tax office holds.

Our tip: Have you registered with Meine SBK? In Meine SBK you have the convenient option of seeing your post from SBK at any time. Learn more about Meine SBK and find out how to register here.

Due to the requirement of the tax authorities, as of October 2021, all health insurers report contribution credits that result from a contribution correction and that have been offset against contributions from more than one year. In the reports, the offsetting is shown as ‘Reimbursed contributions’ and ‘Paid contributions’.

Please contact your tax adviser, an income tax assistance organisation or the tax office if you would like to know how this new situation will affect your tax return.

To offset health insurance contributions, these must generally be entered in the ‘Anlage Vorsorgeaufwand’ schedule of your tax return.

Please note: SBK is not permitted to provide tax advice. To clarify questions of this nature, please contact your tax advisor, the tax office or an income tax assistance association.

Tax-free bonus payments of up to €150 in the period 2021–2023

End of December 2021, the Federal Ministry of Finance announced a new regulation on the reporting of bonus payments, which could significantly reduce your tax burden. According to this, bonus payments from the cash bonus from bonus activities not paid by the insured person in the period 2021–2023 are tax-free up to €150* and are not reported to the tax office. Bonus activities not paid by the insured person include, for example, statutory check-ups and vaccinations.

From 2024, all non-self-financed bonus payments from the cash bonus will be reported to the tax authorities – regardless of their amount.

*In consideration of the applicable tax law, the bonus payment and the tax allowance for family insured persons are to be allocated to the main insured person.

The data is transmitted electronically to the Central Allowance Authority for Pension Assets (Zentrale Zulagenstelle für Altersvermögen, or ZfA). From there your data is sent to the Federal Central Tax Office for verification and then forwarded to the responsible tax office.

Only contributions that you yourself have paid to SBK are reported to the tax office.
The following types of contributions are reported:

Statutory health insurance contributions – without sickness benefit entitlement

Statutory health insurance contributions – with sickness benefit entitlement

Additional contributions for statutory health insurance

Statutory nursing care insurance contributions

We do not report contributions paid by other bodies, such as by your employer or a paying agent. These contributions will be reported to the tax office separately by these other bodies.

Reporting bonus payments for family members

If a relative insured through family insurance receives a payment through the Bonus Scheme, this reimbursement has to be assigned to the main insurant, whose membership is the basis for the family insurance. Important to know: this rule applies even if the reimbursement is paid directly to the family member’s own bank account, for example.

If your family member’s insurance status changes during the year

If a relative insured through family insurance starts a job during the year and is therefore required to have statutory insurance for themselves, the bonus they receive is reported under the status applicable at the time the bonus was paid. Example: a child insured through their father’s family insurance receives a bonus payment of €50.00 on 2 February 2022. The child starts working as a trainee on 1 August 2022 and is therefore required to have their own statutory insurance. The bonus payment is reported to the tax office on the father’s account, because the child was insured through the family insurance at the time of the transaction.

All of your payments and reimbursements for contributions occurring within a calendar year are reported to the tax office. If you pay contributions in advance, the paid contributions are reported to the tax office, whereby the payments are compared against your current contribution amount and excess payments are recorded for future obligations. Important to know: the tax office only recognises advance payments amounting to no more than three times the annual contribution.

Our tip: If you intend to make advance payments, please speak with us. We will help you determine how much you can pay in advance while avoiding ‘overpaying’ beyond the three-year limit.

If a tax audit of your employer, for example, results in SBK reimbursing you for insurance and benefits expenses such as those for

Health insurance

Nursing care insurance

Pension insurance

Unemployment insurance

these reimbursements must be reported to the tax office through what is known as the MZ30 procedure, which is a compulsory notification process.

Until the 2018 tax year, health insurance providers only reported contributions and rewards to the tax office for customers who paid their contributions themselves if these customers had provided consent for data transmission. As of the 2019 tax year, SBK, like all other health insurance providers, has been obligated to report contributions and rewards electronically to the tax office for all customers – even those who have not provided consent for data transmission.

The legal basis for this is the second Act harmonising data protection law with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and implementing Directive (EU) 2016/680, which was adopted on 20 November 2019.

Important to know: The tax office provides health insurance providers with customers’ missing tax IDs upon request in an automated system, so that these providers are able to report data to the tax office accordingly.