Health insurance and tax returns

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 per insured person 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.