Employer

Applications

You have various options for submitting your tax data to the tax office electronically via the Internet. You can find most tax forms (including income tax registrations and income tax certificates) free of charge in Mein ELSTER. However, you can also use any other tax software that supports ELSTER.

Please note that a one-off registration in Mein ELSTER is required for the authenticated transmission of your tax data or the retrieval of ELStAM.

My ELSTER

The Online Tax Office enables you to submit your tax data (e.g. income tax returns) completely paperless. All you need is an Internet browser and you save yourself the trouble of downloading, installing and updating extensive programs.
You can only use it once you have registered with an electronic certificate: Go to registration

Apps from ELSTER

With MeinELSTER+ and ElsterSecure, ELSTER currently offers two different apps for Android and iOS that fulfill different purposes. Further information

Other software products that support ELSTER

Electronic transmission is also possible with a variety of commercial software products: List of software products

Information on

Electronic income tax card / ELStAM

Every employer is obliged to transmit the wage tax certificates for their employees electronically to the tax authorities. This requires the employees' wage tax deduction details (ELStAM). The ELStAM can only be retrieved with authentication. Further information

Procedure for income tax declarations

The income tax registration must be transmitted to the tax authorities with authentication.
After successful transmission, the so-called transmission protocol must be printed. It serves as proof of electronic submission and is intended for your records.

Procedure for income tax certificates

The income tax statement must be transmitted to the tax authorities with authentication.
After electronic transmission, you must collect the so-called processing log. This is made available to you with a time delay (asynchronously) and contains information on the processing of the electronically transmitted wage tax certificates. The same certificate, ID card, security stick or signature card that was used to transmit the wage tax statement data must be used to collect the log.

Please note that there will be a new correction and cancellation procedure from the 2016 calendar year. Help

If you are still unable to retrieve your protocol within five days of submitting it, please contact the Contact form to the ElsterLohn support team.

Digital powers of attorney

You can submit powers of attorney electronically to your tax office. The power of attorney also includes the retrieval of data stored by the tax authorities (certificate retrieval). You can find further information on the various forms of power of attorney in the help section. Manage powers of attorney.

Legal matters